The Keeper of Dawn

by Hickman, J. B.

  Chris wrinkled his face in disgust. “That’s my fall break,” he said, sitting back down. “Sounds grand, doesn’t it? I’ll be put on display as proof that the Governor has a personal interest in public education. Of course he won’t mention that neither of us have ever set foot in a public school. The Governor knows what a pain in the ass I can be. He wouldn’t invite me along if there wasn’t a reason. But screw it. I’m not going. I’ll be partying in Greenwich, getting rowdy with the Headliners.”

  “If you go, you won’t fly,” Roland warned.

  “I’ll fly.”

  “How? He won’t let you.”

  “I’ll find a way. But I’m only going if we’re all going. That includes you, Jake. No fence-sitting on this one.”

  “My mother would kill me,” Roland said, in effect answering for us both.

  “You just saw your mother. She probably doesn’t want to see you again so soon.”

  “They’ve already bought my plane ticket.”

  “Cancel. Use them for Thanksgiving.”

  And just like that, Chris moved on to the next distraction. Instead of talking about bringing girls to the island, he obsessed over spending fall break at Derek’s. As I listened to him whittle away our excuses, Long Island felt far away. How many times had I wanted to return home, and now I was considering postponing that very thing? Though I wasn’t sure when it happened, my homesickness had left. The island had a way of making you forget. With isolation came an amnesia that made it difficult to consider anything beyond the immediate. Schoolwork and Wellington’s social nuances were imperative, while the happenings of the world were reduced to mere headlines forgotten fifteen minutes after breakfast. A life involving mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, seemed distant and strange. The Headliners had become my brothers, and Wellington’s strict faculty fit the role of my father all too well. The muffled voice of my family—in the form of weekly letters—was the only reminder of my previous life.

  In place of homesickness arose a sense of belonging—not to Wellington, but to the Headliners. If I didn’t accompany them to Derek’s, I’d spend fall break wondering what I was missing. But it was 1608 Brickmore Lane that convinced me to join them. Brooklyn was only a short train ride from Greenwich, and it would be easy to visit Grandpa without Mother around.

  Roland gave in shortly after I did, which wasn’t surprising, as I couldn’t imagine him and Chris spending an entire week apart. Chris acted more pleased than Derek, like it was his house we were going to visit.

  “Time for a swim,” he announced, peeling off his shirt. “I want to see what that anvil is like.”

  “The what?” I asked.

  “That rock out there. It’s shaped like an anvil.”

  “Looks more like a house to me.”

  “Well Jake, maybe we can go cloud-gazing some time and have a philosophical discussion on what exactly is floating overheard. But right now I’m going for a swim. Anyone care to join me?”

  “Too cold for me,” Derek said.

  “I thought you wrestlers were tough? What about you two?”

  “Don’t have my trunks,” Roland said.

  “Me either,” I said.

  “Man, talk about a bunch of pussies.”

  When he crossed the beach, I couldn’t help but stare at the feathered wings tattooed across his back. They extended from shoulder to shoulder, running the length of his spine to end just above the waistline.

  “Nice tattoo!” Derek shouted. “When’d you get it?”

  Chris shouted back: “I was born with it!” Then he ran through the surf, the dark wings on his back moving with a life of their own.

  “Seriously, how long has he had that?” Derek asked Roland.

  “Not sure,” Roland replied, cleaning sand from between his toes. “Since he started flying, I think.”

  “Does his father know?” I asked.

  “He was the first one Chris showed.”

  At that moment, Chris jumped up—the wings on his back lifting into the air—and dove headfirst into the water. He surfaced twenty feet away and let out a yell.

  “Whoa!”

  “Too cold for me,” Derek said, though sitting in the sun, it was hard to imagine the water being cold.

  Chris had swum to within thirty feet of the Anvil. When his shoulders protruded from the water, I assumed he had reached higher ground, but the water surrounding the Anvil had lowered as well, revealing dark rocks covered with seaweed. Even the waves around the beach had retreated, allowing the distant call of an unseen gull to carry across the water. Chris must have sensed it too, for the wings on his back crinkled an inch toward his spine, and shuddered.

  A deafening explosion erupted from the archway, sending water high into the air. The wave showered over the Anvil, filling the archway with a thousand swirls and eddies. Though Chris was well out of range, the water around him rose past his chest, forcing him to tread water.

  “What’s he doing?” Roland asked when Chris started to swim back.

  Though Chris cut through the water with a powerful breaststroke, he was drifting to the left—in the direction of the archway. I was surprised he still couldn’t touch bottom. But at last he reached shallow water and waded the rest of the way in.

  “Back kind of soon, aren’t ya?” Derek asked.

  “Strong … undertow,” Chris replied, sucking air.

  “I thought for sure you’d make it,” Roland said.

  “Yeah, who’s the pussy now?” Derek said.

  But for once, Chris didn’t fight back. He sat beside me, shivering on the warm rock. He was uncharacteristically quiet, and nothing could break his stare from the Anvil.

  CHAPTER 9: AN OCEAN AWAY

  I was watering Seymour when Benjamin returned from his weekend at home. He was wearing the same clothes he always wore after visiting his parents—blue jeans an inch too short and a Providence Friars shirt half-tucked in—but his face was clouded over with the same dull expression he had had on Friday.

  “You got a phone call,” he said, throwing his bag on the bunk. “It’s international, so Maurice told them to call back to give you time to get down there.”

  An international call could only mean one person—David. Though the last time he had called was from Istanbul, I still pictured him working for Father. The son of a New York Appellate Court Justice, David was now an expatriate as well as an ex-Hawthorne. It only seemed appropriate for he and father to be on opposite sides of the world.

  Not bothering to put on my shoes, I sped down the stairs and through the lobby, shouldering my way through the Sunday afternoon crowd making their obligatory phone call home. I was checking my watch for what must have been the tenth time when the phone rang.

  “Hello?”

  “Muli bwanji, achimwene,” David said.

  “Hey. You’re speaking in tongues.”

  “How are you, my brother?”

  “I’m fine. Where are you?”

  “Malawi.”

  “Where?”

  “One of Africa’s better kept secrets.”

  “I was about to write you off for dead.”

  “You couldn’t be so lucky. I’ve been meaning to call …”

  “Yeah, yeah. Excuses, excuses. Mother sends me a copy of your letters.” I almost mentioned the crude map I had drawn, plotting David’s course around the globe whenever another letter arrived. “You’re tough to keep track of. Who’s that in the background?” I asked, hearing a girl laugh.

  “My … traveling companion.”

  “You mean girlfriend?”

  David always had a girlfriend, though they rarely lasted.

  “That’s still a little ambiguous at the moment. How about you?”

  “How about me, what?”

  “Any girlfriend?”

  “Sorry, Charlie. No girls on the island.”

  “I guess that makes it a little difficult. So what’s this about your school? Mother makes it sound like some tropical paradise.”
/>   “She’s delusional as usual. It’s not as impressive as it sounds, believe me.”

  “Are you staying at that resort she always used to talk about?”

  “The Hotel Nouveau, yeah.”

  “And they’re hosting a political debate next month?”

  I often had to remind myself of the debate. Raker Island hardly seemed civilized enough for adults, let alone the leaders of government. Aside from Chris ranting about his father, the debate was rarely brought up.

  “Sounds impressive to me,” David said.

  “Yeah, I guess. But the classes aren’t that different from Homestead.”

  “But you’re at a prep school now. I can’t believe it, my little preppie brother. So talk to me. I want all the dirt.”

  I talked mostly about the Headliners. I didn’t have the heart to tell him about the occasional run-ins with Loosy-Goosy, my mediocre grades, or how I had been ostracized by the school. “I’m going to Greenwich with them for fall break.” After a short pause, I added, “I was also planning on swinging by and seeing Grandpa. Though I doubt Father would approve.”

  The silence that followed went on for so long that I began to think we had gotten disconnected.

  “You ever hear from him?” I asked.

  “A couple times a month. But you know how he hates answering the phone. I let it ring until he picks up, always with a few choice words.”

  It took me a moment to realize he was talking about Grandpa. I hadn’t been aware Grandpa even owned a phone, but then one day it rang from behind a stack of encyclopedias. If it’s important, they can stop by, he told me without leaving his chair.

  After our conversation, I walked out into the cool September air, thinking back to that climactic night three years before when David had come home, unknowingly sabotaging my science project.

  * * * * *

  I had been brainstorming most of the afternoon on how to devise an apparatus that would allow a raw egg to withstand a twelve-foot drop onto a hard surface. Out of desperation, I had decided on a roll of toilet paper. I was in the process of delicately guiding the egg into the center of a roll of Charmin Extra Soft when David, who was supposed to be in Albany with Father for the Higginson trial, went running past the kitchen and up the stairs. In my surprise, I inadvertently squeezed the egg, my fingers dipping into its cool, gelatinous innards.

  “Nasty!” I jerked my hand away, the egg yolk spilling on the ceramic tile with a wet plop. “Shit!” I threw the roll of toilet paper away and rinsed my hands, making a mental note to clean the floor as I raced up the stairs after David. I found him in his old room searching through a box he had pulled from the depths of his closet.

  “Hey,” he said in a distracted voice.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I don’t believe this,” he said, looking at the osprey calendar above the desk. His old bed was adorned with flower imprints and countless decorative pillows—all part of Mother’s new décor. “Where’s all my shit?”

  “Shouldn’t you be in Albany?”

  “I should if I were still on the Higginson case,” he replied, beginning to sift through the contents of the box, his tie dangling in front of him.

  “Does he have you working out of the lingerie office?”

  The Hawthorne Law Office in Manhattan faced a Calvin Klein billboard that depicted drop-dead gorgeous models standing provocatively in their underwear. The billboard changed every three months or so, supplying the lawyers with a fresh supply of fifty-foot-tall beauties.

  “No,” David said. “I quit.” He disappeared into the closet and came out with another box, this one labeled “Soft ‘n Gentle, White Bathroom Tissue,” reminding me of the egg that lay splattered across the kitchen floor.

  “Quit? What do you mean you quit?”

  “It’s a long story, Jake,” he said, loosening his tie. “I’ll tell you all about it someday when you’re older.”

  “But I am older.”

  “Not old enough.”

  “Well, exactly how old is old enough?”

  David looked at me, annoyed. “Older,” he said, and began sorting through the box.

  “So what are you going to do now? Are you moving back home?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.

  “There’s little chance of that.”

  He had an uncharacteristic five o’clock shadow, and when our eyes met, my brother looked older than he ever had. Something silent and menacing stood in the fifteen years that separated us.

  “I’m going to France,” he said, returning his attention to the box. “To Paris. I leave tonight. That is if I can find my passport.” He overturned the box, sending its contents tumbling to the floor. A high school yearbook and an unopened Christmas present landed at my feet.

  “Paris! What’s in Paris?”

  “Here, make yourself useful,” he said, shoving a shoebox in my direction.

  I fought the instinct to pester him with more questions and began searching through the shoebox filled with old school papers, Marvel comic books, and what looked to be love letters. My mind was filled with so many unanswered questions that I nearly overlooked his passport.

  “Got it!” I cried.

  “Yeah?” David looked up. “You’re the man, Jake! Let me see.”

  “No way.” I slipped the passport into my back pocket. “Not until you tell me what’s going on.”

  “Come on. Hand it over.”

  “You heard me. No answers, no passport.”

  “All right. But it’s got to be quick.”

  “Spill your guts, or the passport gets it.”

  “All right,” he said, looking amused. “I guess I owe you that much.”

  I pushed Mother’s pillows aside and sat beside him on the bed.

  “It’s kind of like this. You know how you feel on the last day of school? How the last few hours crawl by and you’re watching the clock, waiting for summer to begin?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “That’s what I’ve been feeling for … well, for quite awhile. I’m anxious, like on that last day of school, waiting for something new to begin.”

  “So … you’re taking a vacation,” I said, still confused.

  “Not exactly.”

  “An extended vacation? A what do you call it? A sabbatical?”

  “Sort of. Let’s just say I need to get away from …” He paused.

  Away from him.

  “Away from it all,” he said.

  “But why Paris?”

  “It’s not just Paris. That’s just a starting point. I want to see the world. I want to go off the beaten path. I’m not even sure where yet. I’ll figure it out as I go. Look, you might not be able to make heads or tails of it now, but someday you’ll know what I’m talking about.”

  “How long will you be gone?”

  David threw his hands in the air. “Who knows. A month, a year. It’s hard to say. But hey, look, we’ll still see each other. You know how Mother talks about the Riviera. You won’t have to push too hard to get her over there.”

  “What about Father?”

  He paused. “The old man isn’t much for vacations. But we’ll see.”

  And then he was gone. One last handshake and quick hug goodbye, then he disappeared into the backseat of the taxi that had been waiting for him. I lingered in the driveway, our great home piled up behind me, knowing that in a few hours David would be an ocean away. Even after the taxi had left, I still saw him standing in the driveway looking back at me. The fact that he hadn’t packed a single bag indicated he was doing more than going on sabbatical. He was running, and he wasn’t looking back.

  I was in the kitchen intending on cleaning the floor when Father came home. The interrogation that followed was inevitable. My father had the disturbing ability to remain perfectly calm while coming within an inch of exploding into a fit of rage. The fact that he had never lost his composure did nothing to make me less terrified. I was telling him that David had returned for his pas
sport when the sound of Mother’s heels came down the hall. A moment later she entered the kitchen.

  “What? What is it?” she asked, sensing something was awry. When Father didn’t answer, she turned to me. “Tell me.”

  “It’s David,” I said. “He’s gone.”

  “Gone?” Her eyebrow shot up. “Gone where?”

  “To the airport. He was only here for a few minutes … to pick up his passport.”

  “Passport? What’s this about?” She glanced at Father, who was studying the floor as if something of great interest held his attention.

  “He said he was going to Europe,” I said. “To Paris.”

  “Paris? Well that’s just not possible. Jonathan, how is that possible? Aren’t you finishing up the Higginson trial this week? Isn’t David giving closing arguments? He can’t just … up and go on vacation.”

  “I don’t think …” I began, but my mouth had gone dry, forcing me to swallow. “I don’t think it’s a vacation.”

  Mother’s jaw dropped open, her hand drifting up like she was concealing a yawn. The hand stayed there, stuck to her lips. I knew that her mind was racing, that it had only taken that one statement, and she knew everything. Not only did she realize what David had done, but also, what had driven him to do it.

  My mother didn’t shed a single tear at discovering her oldest son had run away from home. Emotion came very close to breaking through the proper etiquette that she prided herself on; her quivering lip almost turned into something more, but in the end, she didn’t allow herself to grieve, at least not in front of me. Instead, she began to back away, her body only capable of slow, precise movements.

  “Jacob, you’d better go. Your father and I … have to talk.”

  “But I—”

  “Go!”

  Except for backing awkwardly through the kitchen, she maintained her composure. But as I turned to leave, her right heel came down in the egg yolk and slipped out from under her. Father lunged forward, but not in time to stop her from falling backwards. She landed with a heavy thud, looking mildly surprised to be suddenly on the floor, with raw egg smeared across the bottom of her skirt.