Janus Coins: John's Story - Ch. 01

The Janus Coins: John's Story

Act 1 -- Chapter 1

There may be more depressing ways to spend your birthday than in a Village Inn in Iowa City, but what those ways might be, I'm not sure. At least I had one of my sisters with me, so maybe that took a little of the stink off it.

"I still don't understand why you're not allowed to leave campus for the weekend, John," Abby said to me. "Explain it to me again?" She was twenty years my elder, so while we were brother and sister, she didn't really know me all that well. She was the oldest of the nine of us, while I was the youngest. That meant when she was at the point in her life that I am now, I'd only just been born. And the difference between going to college in the 1970s and the 1990s had to be eons apart.

"I'm a Residence Hall Assistant, Abby," I told her, for what I'm sure was the third time since we'd sat down for a very late night dinner inside the Village Inn that was usually packed with college students any time day or night but was, of course, nearly completely empty tonight. "That means if there are any residents staying in the hall for the Thanksgiving weekend, I can't leave, because I have to be around in case anything goes wrong or they have an emergency."

"They're not going to have an emergency, John," she said, rolling her eyes. "This is your second year doing that job and did anything happen last year during Thanksgiving?"

"No, nor did anything happen during Christmas or New Year's or even spring break, but I did have to talk a student out of committing suicide in September, so it's not like I'm never doing anything in my job," I told her, sipping from my orange Crush. "Besides, Mom and Dad's house is so damn full for Thanksgiving anyway, I'm sure nobody even notices I'm gone."

My birthday is on November 25^th, and that means every seven years, my birthday falls on Thanksgiving, and the other six years of the cycle, people were always too busy with Thanksgiving to give a fuck about my birthday. Shit, that year in particular was my 21^st birthday even, and the bars had basically been empty. Sure, I'd still gotten free drinks from the couple of bars my sister and I wandered into, but my friends had all gone home to their families, and so it didn't really feel like much of a celebration without people around to celebrate with me.

I was a little surprised my family had sent Abby this year. For the last three years, they'd dispatched someone from the family to come and spend the day with me, to tell me to cheer up, to tell me how much the family misses me and they wish I could come home for the holidays, but that they understood why I couldn't and they still loved me anyway.

But to drive from Iowa City to Hanston, Kansas was 9 hours under the best conditions, which it never was.

Abby's husband, Marcus, had already gone to bed back at the Motel 6 and would be getting up at the buttcrack of dawn, if not earlier, to drive the two of them to the farm in time to make Thanksgiving dinner. Last year they'd given the job to my brother Josh, who was driving down from Chicago anyway, and just stopped along the way. The first year the gig had fallen to my sister Danielle, who'd driven over from her home in Omaha, since she and her husband were spending Thanksgiving there.

"Nate tells me you're still not dating anybody," Abby said, sipping from her coffee. "Michelle was almost three years ago, John. It's time to get back on the horse and get back out there."

"Yeah, well, when your high school sweetheart tells you she wants to try long distance and then starts banging some other dude within a week of starting school at Hamline, you tend to hold onto that wound for a bit," I grumbled. "I mean, that and the fact that I had to find out because Hutch saw her making out with some dude at a Prince concert he just happened to run into her at, rather than her telling me herself. I mean, c'mon."

"You can be bitter as much as you want, John, but you're in college! You're supposed to be young and stupid and making mistakes that you're going to look back on fondly for the rest of your life! I practically had to force that Pabst into your hand tonight," she said, shaking her head. "You should be kneedeep in mindless sex and drugs!"

Abby had lived a pretty good life. She'd gone to veterinary school after college, and offered on-site services for over a hundred farms in Kansas, while her husband, Marcus, owned and managed a couple of restaurants in Topeka, where they lived. Every year, they took two weeks off and traveled to another country they'd never been to. Last year, it had been Haiti, and Abby had spent at least a few phone calls relaying how much they'd loved Port-au-Prince and how I really should go down there and see it.

"Mom says you're not even going anywhere for spring break! Kids going and getting fucked up and getting laid with people whose names they don't even know is a spring break tradition going back at least twenty years, John, and you're not even doing that! You could be getting some of those Girls Gone Wild girls! Tell me you're still at least considering spring breaking."

I knew she was mostly teasing me, but there was also an undercurrent of genuine concern in her voice, as if she was worried that I was missing out on the best years of my life by being too responsible too early in life, but I'd always been like that.

"Probably not," I said with a shrug, "but that doesn't mean I can't drink Long Island Iced Teas in the bars here, so I'm sure I'm going to have some fun of my own."

"Sounds more like a pity party than a real party," she sighed. "Anyway, this should at least make it more fun." She slid a small package wrapped in paper decorated with Garbage Pail Kids on it across the laminated tablecloth to me. "Happy birthday, baby brother."

"You love giving me the worst fucking wrapping paper every year, don't you?"

"Oh hush," she said. "My kids love this paper."

"Your kids are five and eight, Abby," I laughed. "Am I going to regret opening this?"

"I mean, it's probably just a thing that you're going to tell stories about for years, how your crazy big sister actually thought magic might be real, but it looks cool, if nothing else. Go on, open it!"

I tore the paper off and beneath it was an old lacquered wooden box with metal hinges on it. If anything, it looked sort of like a wedding ring box, but the box had artwork on it that had to be either stained or burned on, dark black lines beneath the shiny varnish.

"Is it cursed pirate treasure?" I asked, shooting her a suspicious glance.

"You know I wouldn't give you anything cursed. You're still family, even if you are a pain in the ass for making me have to drive out here so someone's around for your birthday."

"Anything else I can get you two?" the waitress asked us, the tone in her voice implying that she would love for us to leave. It wasn't like anyone else was in the place, but I guess if there weren't any customers in the place at all, they could read books or watch television without seeming lazy.

"Just the check please," Abby said.

The waitress ripped off the top sheet of her notepad and set it down on the table, and before she could walk away, my sister had already placed her credit card on top of it, so the waitress went to go run the card.

I opened the box and inside there was a small bundle, cloth wrapped around some tiny object.

"The instructions are on the cloth," she said, "if they even work. They probably don't, but like I said, what's the harm in trying?"

I unwrapped the cloth and rolled it out, seeing it was indeed a list of instructions, and it was wrapped around what looked like a single golden coin that had to be hundreds of years old, maybe even more. On one side, there was a man's face in profile but mirrored so it was there twice, one face facing to the left and the other facing right, and on the other side, there was an engraving of a door. Around the door were the words "OMNI CORDE OSTIUM." I recognized Latin when I saw it, but what it meant, who the hell knew.

The instructions on the cloth read as follows:

The Janus Coins

1. Find a beautiful woman.
2. Show her the coin and say "A new beginning..."
3. Repeat steps 1-2 exactly once.
4. When they say, "A door opens..." your time begins.
5. After seven days from the door opening, choose the better of the two.
6. Hand her the coin and say "Your door remains open."
7. You have eight seasons to decide to keep her or release her.
8. If you keep her, ask her to give you the coin and say to her "All other doors have closed."
9. If you decide to release her, ask her to give you the coin and say to her "Your door has closed."
10. If you choose step 8, you must sell the coin and these instructions within 1 year.
11. If you choose step 9, go back to step 1 until you get it right.
12. Praise Janus.

"You've got to be kidding me with this," I said to Abby, rolling my eyes a little. "You bought me a magic coin? I'm pretty sure you got scammed. How much did you pay for this?"

"Not a lot, so if it's nothing more than just a cute story, no big loss, but if it's real, if it does what the guy who sold it to me says it does, then your women problems are over!" she said. For a woman just starting her 40s, she could be blissfully naive from time to time. "Look, humor your big sister. Give it a go, see if it works, and if it doesn't, we can have a good laugh about it."

The waitress came back with the credit card slip for Abby to sign, and I'm sure my sister left a good tip, because Abby had done her time waitressing when she was younger. I wrapped the coin back in the cloth and put it back in the box before tucking the box into my pocket. In my left hand, I crumpled the wrapping paper into a ball, so I could toss it into the trash on the way out.

We both stood up and my sister gave me a big, matronly hug. Out in the parking lot, she headed towards Marcus's Ford F-150 pickup truck and I headed over to my crappy Geo Prizm. There was snow on the ground, and the wind was whipping through the air like a motherfucker. I was sad to see her go, but I'd see her again next summer when I made my annual trip down to see the family for Mom's birthday, which also doubled as the yearly family reunion.

I turned the key and my Prizm shuddered to life, as the CD player spun up and the Mighty Lemon Drops begun to sing "At Midnight" through my crappy little speakers. My beat up 1989 car had a couple hundred thousand miles on it, but refused to give up the ghost and began to rumble as the heater in my car started trying to bring the freezer temperature inside to something more hospitable.

It was only a five minute drive from the Village Inn to the dorm's parking lot. Normally I would've just walked or skateboarded over to the restaurant, but it was too fucking cold, and the sidewalks were too fucking icy for boarding safely. The snows in Iowa could start as early as October, and in 1998, they'd begun in early November, so by the time Thanksgiving weekend rolled around, we already had a foot and half of snow on the ground, so even the short jaunt across campus was something I would drive if I could. During the days when the sun was out, it wasn't too bad, but at night, shit, you were likely to get frostbite on that kind of walk unless you were bundled up completely from head to toe.

The parking lot outside of Hillcrest Hall was unusually empty, but not unexpectedly so. For Thanksgiving weekend, most of the people who lived in the dorms tended to drive home back to their parents, to whatever small town they came from, to spend the holiday with their family. Iowa City has a population of about 60k, half of which is college students, so when school's out, both the city and the campus feel almost unearthly still.

It was after midnight, which meant I would have to get whichever RA had been stuck with lobby duty to let me into the building. They'd check my student ID, make sure I lived in Hillcrest then let me go to my room. There would only be a student down here until 1 am and then after that, you had to get campus security to let you in, and nobody wanted that.

I knocked on the glass door, and sure enough, one of the RAs came to let me in. It looked like Stephanie was on duty tonight, and I was surprised. I didn't think she'd even stayed in the building for the holiday, but I guess I wasn't the only one who'd gotten suckered in to remaining in the building.

I hadn't been entirely truthful with Abby at dinner. Only a third of the RAs were required to stay in the hall during vacation times, and those names were generally chosen at random, unless people volunteered, which I had for Thanksgiving last year and again this year.

Don't get me wrong, I love my family, I really do. But eighteen hours of driving to see them for just a day or so wasn't the kind of thing I liked doing that often. Besides, the drive was through the ass end of nowhere. I don't know if you've ever driven through Iowa, Missouri and Kansas before, but it is dull as fuck, there are no real good radio stations and even if I bring like a dozen CDs with me, that means I'm listening to all of them like three times before I get back to Iowa City.

I might not volunteer this year for the Christmas/New Year's holiday break, but it was considered overtime pay, and that meant it was carving out a good chunk of my college loan debts, which was nice. I figured if I stayed in the dorm for the next two years and worked during all the holidays, I might just break even when I graduated, which seemed like a pretty damn good idea.

Stephanie was a good looking girl a few months shy of her own 21^st birthday, with wavy hair the color of teak that hung down just a little past her shoulders. She was in her pajamas, big comfy flannel pants and a t-shirt at least five sizes too big for her. The lobby was the warmest place in the building, which was probably the only reason she didn't have a sweater on.

She'd always been polite to me, but never really shown much interest in me beyond being a friend, so I figured, sure, why the hell not. No time to start proving this thing was bullshit like the present. I'd seen her go through a couple of boyfriends last year, and she hadn't seemed to pick up anybody new this year, at least as far as I knew, although I felt fairly certain I would've heard. We RAs are a gossipy bunch. I set my student ID down on the table, as Stephanie began to fill out the log entry, marking my late entry into the building, mostly just as a precaution, I think.

Before she'd finished filling it out, I'd fished the coin out from its nesting place in the box, sliding it out of the cloth, feeling the cool metal against my fingertips. I rested it on the perch of my thumb and forefinger and then flipped it into the air like I'd seen gangsters in old black and white movies do. Giving it a flick with my thumb caused the coin to ping and she glanced up to see it spinning and flipping end over end in the bright fluorescent lights of the lobby.

"Cool coin," she said. "Almost looks like gold."

"A new beginning," I said quietly, as I caught it in my hand again.

"What was that?" she said.

"Nothing, just something I'm supposed to say when I flip it, apparently." I noticed that nothing about her had changed in any way shape or form, so at that point, I was pretty sure my sister had just gotten ripped off when she'd bought the coin. "Have a good night, Steph," I said, heading for the stairs to jog up to my room on the fourth floor.

I headed into my room, crawled into bed and fell asleep.

The next morning was Thanksgiving day, and there wasn't a lot to do, really, so I spent the first few hours of the day watching Terminator 2 on VHS for like the fiftieth time while I ate a cup of ramen noodles for lunch. The cafeteria was closed for the holiday, so I'd probably be microwaving some pizza rolls for dinner, bought from the local 7-11. I was wearing a big Echo & The Bunnymen t-shirt and sweatpants, since I knew the building was practically empty.

I figured Thanksgiving afternoon would be an excellent time to get my laundry done, so I grabbed my clothes hamper and my roll of quarters and headed down to the laundry room, only to find I wasn't the only one with that idea.

Inside the laundry room was a thin waft of a blonde girl whose name I didn't know, because she wasn't from my floor. Her blonde hair was done up in a sloppy ponytail that looked it was mostly just to get it out of her face, no real effort to look pretty or stylish. She was wearing a large ratty t-shirt, and I was guessing she had on shorts beneath it, but it hung too long for me to tell. She was pretty enough, a sort of ballerina look to her.

"Hey, you mind if I share the laundry room with you?" I asked her. There were four washing machines and four dryers, so I knew there would be space, but some of the girls were a little skittish about sharing the room with boys, as if we'd be shocked to know they had boring underwear in addition to the stuff they liked to tease the boys with.

"Nope," she said. "Hop on in. I'm using the left two, but the right two are open. I'm Amy." She offered me her hand so I took it and shook it.

"Cool, I'm John, one of the RAs from four. Nice to meet you, Amy," I said as I started to toss clothes into one of the washers. I was glad there were two open, because it meant I could get this done twice as quickly -- one washer for my colors and one for my whites, both running at the same time, instead of having to do one load after another. "How come you didn't go home for Thanksgiving?"

"Oh," she said, smiling at me a little shyly. "My family lives in upstate New York, so I didn't see the point of driving to Cedar Rapids then flying up to Albany just to have to get back on a plane in a day to make it back. It's my first Thanksgiving by myself, but I think that's exciting! College has been such an adventure so far."

"Ah," I said to her. "You're a freshman."

She nodded. "Yeah, history major. I'm planning on being an archaeologist."

"Like Indiana Jones?" I said.

"Well, yes but no," she giggled. "It's not really treasure hunting. It's more like spending a lot of time digging, trying to find relics of a lost time."

"That kind of thing interest you?"

"Oh yeah! My parents sent me to Greece for my graduation present, and I spent a couple of days just exploring Delphi, seeing where the oracle was, and the ruins that are nearby. I could've been there for months if I didn't have to come back."

"Take a look at this and tell me what you think," I said, pulling the coin my sister had given me last night from my pocket, holding it out to her.

She took it from me in slender fingers and held it up to the light. "Oh WOW! Where'd you get this from? I'm pretty sure that's orichalum."

Out of pure curiosity, I said "A new beginning" quietly beneath my breath, and nothing happened. So I answered her question. "My sister gave it to me. She seemed to think it was some sort of ancient Roman coin."

"It's entirely possible that it's the real deal," she said, nodding. "Roman coins were usually made of a combination of copper and zinc, and that's Latin on it, although I couldn't tell you what it says beyond the obvious one."

"You know 'omni' means 'all' too, huh?" I chuckled.

"Sure," she said, tossing the coin back to me, "but that's all I recognize. You could look on Yahoo! maybe, see if it knows anything about it."

"Yeah, I guess."

"Anyway, there's only a few of us in the building, so I'm going to head back to my room to watch TV for a bit while I'm waiting for the laundry to finish, so maybe I'll see you later John?"

"Yep, I'll probably be back down here around the same time as you."