The Keeper of Dawn (15 page)

“You better hope I don’t. You won’t stand a chance,” Chris
said, which earned him a slug in the shoulder.

While Chris and Derek went to look for Samantha, Roland and
I played an embarrassingly long game of pool. It finally ended when I scratched
on the 8-ball. By then our drinks were empty and the room had cleared out, so
we headed up for a refill.

Upstairs everything had changed. The music had gotten louder
and conversations were a volley of shouts. There was no host—Derek’s brothers
were either nowhere to be found, or selfishly seeking out their own
indulgences. The Mayhew’s party didn’t have a head; only dozens of arms and
legs all flailing in different directions. People were everywhere—streaming
from room to room, seated around the Victorian dining table playing drinking
games, doing upside-down keg stands, waiting at the crystal swan for the next
drink to be poured. While refilling my drink, a guy wearing a Jim Morrison
shirt got shoved into the pool.

Somehow I was alone. I had lost track of Roland and didn’t
recognize a single face in the crowd. I meandered to the other side of the
pool, where I found Chris standing next to Zeus. He was talking with two girls
who laughed hysterically at everything he said. Chris could be pretty funny
when he wanted to be, but not
that
funny. Though I had to admit he
looked rather sophisticated, still puffing on his stolen cigar, leaning on Zeus
like he was in tight with the Greek deities. I was drifting in his direction
when a girl came over and struck up a conversation with me. She was thin,
sarcastic, always waving a cigarette, with crooked teeth that distracted me
whenever she smiled. By the time she rejoined her friends, Chris was nowhere to
be seen.

Feeling everyone’s eyes upon me, I sipped my drink and tried
to relax. I became filled with an urge to wander. I went from room to room,
eventually making my way back to where we had watched the guests arrive. But
the party that had previously been all static and uproar was now starting to
make sense. The music was no longer too loud; the shouts from the back of the
house no longer obnoxious. Somewhere nearby, a grandfather clock struck
midnight, and by the time its chime ended, the sound of a piano drew me into
the next room.

A small crowd had gathered around a girl playing a grand
piano. She sat with perfect posture, and I watched her nimble hands glide over
the black and ivory keys. The song was “Whither Must I Wander,” a tune my
mother had played when I had been very young. A look of concentration filled
her face with an inexpressive beauty. It was strange, almost surreal, to hear
that elegant song being played there. The marble floors and chandeliers were
worthy of such music; the drunken partygoers swaying from room to room were not.
As she continued to play, a voice in my head sang the lyrics.

Home no more home to
me,

Whither must I
wander?

Home was home then,
my dear, full of kindly faces,

Home was home then,
my dear, happy for the child.

Fire and the windows
bright glittered on the moorland;

Song, tuneful song,
built a palace in the wild.

The song surrounded me. It had in it both the present and
the past, and I was pulled back to a place I had wished to return for some
time. Dinner was over. As the table was being cleared, Mother went into the
adjacent room and took her place at the piano. She sang as she played, her
voice hovering over my shoulder like she was still seated at the table. It
always surprised me how the music transformed her voice, allowing her to become
a different person for the song’s duration. Father sat at the head of the
table, with David across from him. Though I was too young to follow their
conversation, Father would look over every so often to include me. Whenever
David was back from school, Father made it a habit to talk about the firm. He
and David would go back and forth, discussing serious topics lightheartedly,
and despite being in the other room, Mother was there with us too, content that
the family was reunited.

Fair the day shine as
it shone on my childhood;

Fair shine the day on
the house with open door.

Birds come and cry
there and twitter in the chimney,

But I go forever and
come again no more.

The song was over. I sat alone in the shadows. The girl
began to play a melody, something I didn’t recognize. Her friends had left, but
she kept playing for the two of us. Her delicate hands created the music, and I
found them too beautiful to look away.

Collapsed in the velvet armchair, I realized I was drunk for
the first time in my life. The memory has never left me. To this day, whenever
I feel the warm buzz of alcohol, I think back to the two of us on that
particular midnight, alone in the cavernous room, united by the music.

* * * * *

I was standing in a bathroom staring at my reflection when
all the shouting started. I stumbled into the hall and joined a rush of people
on the balcony overlooking the pool. But wait—how had I gotten there? Something
was missing. I remembered dancing and music. Yes, I had danced with her in the
entryway. She had stopped playing the piano and took my hand in hers. The
alcohol made me off-balanced; I couldn’t find the nerve to look her in the eye.
I could still hear the piano as we danced, but her hands were clasped in mine,
so perhaps the music was only in my head. I became captivated with how our feet
moved in little circles across the cool marble of the entryway, with music
drifting in from all sides.

Something was happening by the pool. The music had shut off.
Everyone’s attention was focused on a bright light weaving back and forth
behind the house. The crystal swan had been thrown into the pool. It sat at the
bottom in a pink cloud of water—diluted remnants of punch.

A car engine revved, igniting a panic in those gathered
below. One minute they were talking and laughing, the next they were shoving
their way inside the house. The lights belonged to Derek’s Mustang, which was
bearing down on the pool at an alarming speed. A stampede had started—one girl
screamed, and a kid wearing a fedora fell into the pool.

The car never even slowed down as it smashed through the
shrubbery, clipping Artemis with its front bumper before plunging headlong into
the water. A wave rose out of the pool, crashing over those scrambling to get
inside. Artemis teetered to one side, briefly maintaining its balance before
toppling onto the concrete. The swimming pool was narrow, and had the car gone
in anywhere but the middle, it would have been much worse. As it turned out, it
passed through enough water to slow it down, though it still collided with the
wall hard enough to smash the headlights.

As the car sank—leaking tendrils of oil—Travis swam out the
driver’s side window. Surfacing, he laughed and started to say something, but
his words were lost as he went back underwater. He was so intoxicated that
treading water was a challenge. He finally managed to doggy-paddle to the edge
where Derek—doubled-over with laughter—pulled him out. Travis looked lost,
staring at the statue that had cracked in half at the waist.

But humor was lost on those around them, most of whom were
soaked. One girl looked down at her ruined outfit and burst into tears, causing
her boyfriend to shout profanities at the Mayhew brothers. Soon others joined
in, the mood of the crowd changing from disbelief to rage. Travis hung his head
despite his stupid grin. Derek alone seemed sober enough to understand their
predicament.

CRACK!

A gunshot pierced the night air. The hostility of a moment
ago gave way to an unnatural silence. The noise sounded like it had come from
inside the house. Then, as if a race had begun, everyone was scrambling to get
inside, and I had little choice but to follow, getting swept from the balcony
and down the stairs like driftwood caught in a river’s current. We ran through
the house, not to get away from the gunfire, but to find it. In the hilarity of
that night, no one wanted to miss anything.

We ended up in the library. Lamps resembling torches in
bronze sconces lit the room. Shelves of leather-bound books extended into the
shadows. Wolfgang and Strauss’ cages were empty, and a faint scent of gunpowder
hung in the air.

Zack stood apart from the crowd. His shirt was off, and he
clutched the .22 with the intense look of a hunter. He was staring at the
ceiling, oblivious that the room had filled with people. A girl, her shirt
partway unbuttoned and her bra exposed, sat on the sofa. She looked to be
convulsing, and at first I thought Zack had shot her. But then I realized she
was laughing. She sat up and tried to speak, but her laughter prevented her
from uttering a single word.

“Those mothafuckas,” Zack slurred. He shook his gun in
anger. “I’m gonna kill ‘em. Gonna kill ‘em and mount ‘em on my wall.”

He turned toward us, revealing a white, gooey substance in
his hair.

The girl stopped laughing long enough to find her voice. “I
just thought—”

“I don’t want to hear it, Wendy!”

“But they looked so sad in their cages,” she said, which was
followed by another eruption of silent laughter, the tops of her pale breasts
jiggling.

“They shit all over me!”

“Where’s Strauss! Perch up, Strauss!” came the reply, which
was followed by a few agitated chirps. One of the birds flapped his large wings
from the top of a bookshelf.

“I’m gonna kill you, MOTHERFUCKER!” Zack screamed, pointing
his gun wildly in the air.

Derek rushed out of the crowd, pulling his brother to the
ground just as the gun went off.

CRACK!

Everyone jumped. Plaster fell from the ceiling, landing
within inches of where Derek had pinned his oldest brother to the floor.

“CAW! CAW!” screeched one of the birds. I could see them
both now, perched on opposite sides of the room, their heads twisting to look
down at us.

“REEEE! REEEE!”

“Er-er-er! The age of chivalry is past,” said the other. “Bores
have succeeded to dragons!”

“What’s he mean by that?” Zack shouted, still pinned to the
floor. “What the FUCK DOES HE MEAN BY THAT?”

Todd ran out of the crowd and pried the gun from Zack’s
hands. Derek stood up, pulling Zack with him. Travis was there too, swaying in
the corner, looking surprised that someone had out-humiliated him.

“Way to go, Zack,” someone in the crowd called out. “You’ll
get ‘em next time.”

Then there was a commotion outside the door, and a woman in
a housecoat who looked like she had just been roused from bed pushed her way
through the crowd. The room went silent; even Wendy swallowed her laughter and
began to clumsily button up her shirt. Then Wolfgang flew down, landed on his
cage, and proceeded to stick his foot in his beak.

“Mom!” Zack said, sounding both delighted and surprised.

“Don’t ‘mom’ me!” the woman barked. “Give me that gun.” She
yanked the .22 from Todd’s hands. “You’re waking up the whole neighborhood with
your racket. Including me.” She turned to the rest of us. “It’s over. Go home. Everybody
get out.”

“It’s over! Go home! Everybody get out!” repeated Wolfgang
from atop the cage.

I was stunned.
Their mother was home
. She had been
home the entire time. The loud music, the underage drinking, the car crash and
gunfire.

As the crowd dispersed, the four of us went down to the bar.
Derek had changed into dry clothes, and though he had served as the
“responsible one,” he was obviously drunk.

“Jake, you want some Jack?” Chris asked, refilling his shot
glass. If anything, Chris looked more alert.

“What?”

Roland was sitting on the pool table, cupping his hands over
his ears like he had been deafened by the gunshots.

“My God, even Hawthorne’s drunk.” Chris slapped his hand on
the bar and spun the barstool in a circle. “It’s official. This
must
be
a party.”

“She didn’t come,” Derek said miserably.

“Who?” Chris asked.

“Samantha.” Derek was peering into his empty shot glass. “I
invited her. I know I invited her.”

“She was probably here. You just didn’t see her.”

“I would’ve seen her.”

I stared at the mirror behind the bar. Roland was in the
beginning stages of passing out on the pool table. Chris and Derek were huddled
over their drinks like old men. Chris moved his hands as he spoke, his
reflection smearing across the mirror. I looked at myself and grinned. I opened
my mouth and stuck out my tongue. Somehow I had lost control of my own
reflection.

“I’m going over there,” Derek announced.

“Where? To her place? It’s
two
in the morning.”

“I gotta know why she didn’t come. That’s all I’m gonna do. I’ll
just go over, and ask her why she didn’t come. Then I’ll come right back.”

“She’ll be in bed.”

“I’ll wake her up.”

“That’s crazy. I won’t let you do it.”

Derek got up, stumbling a bit before finding his balance. “You
gonna stop me?”

“I meant to say, I won’t let you do it
alone
.”

Then someone was speaking in my ear. “Have some Jack, Jake. Jake,
have some Jack. Come on Jake Daniels, pound ‘er away.”

It was Chris. He put my hand around a shot glass. I couldn’t
see him beside me, but I kept a close eye on him in the mirror. I carefully
lifted the glass to my lips. Something cool was in my mouth, but by the time it
reached my stomach it had turned to fire. My eyes returned to the mirror, but I
looked away when I couldn’t find my reflection.

* * * * *

Unfortunately living “next door” meant half a mile away,
though all distances were vague and out of focus. Derek led us down the hill,
his flashlight shaking erratically through the trees. He had more problems
unzipping his fly to relieve himself than he did stumbling his way through the
dark. Shadow, the black lab, was at our heels. Roland had it the worst. Chris
had to practically drag him off the pool table. But once on his feet, he
marched without complaint, though with the dazed look of a sleepwalker.