Then she burst into tears.
At that moment she ceased to be Diane Hawthorne, daughter of the late Senator William Rose, wife of Jonathan Hawthorne, benefactor of the community. She was simply a middle-aged woman sitting on her kitchen floor, weeping over the loss of her son. Father and I stood beside her, our arms at our sides, our hearts reaching out at a mother’s grief.
“You! You!” she cried, her hand clutching Father’s leg. “You!” Then she bowed her head, her body shaking with sobs.
The sound of Mother crying carried through the house, carried up the stairs and down the hall into David’s old room where I returned the boxes to the closet. Our house, where so many feelings lay suffocated over the years, now amplified our grief, perhaps eager that emotion of any kind stirred within its walls.
I remained in David’s room, searching for some trace of him amid the various pictures and knickknacks. But there was nothing. It was like he had never lived there at all.
CHAPTER 10: LIGHTS OUT
Patterson Hall’s lavatory was filled with laughter. The noise surrounded me, swelling out of the floor and reverberating off the walls. Though my hands were cupped over my ears, I couldn’t shut out their voices. My only protection was a stall door that I feared would burst open at any second. Most of the floor was there, including Brockman, Bixley, Calhoun, Myers, Praet, and of course Loosy-Goosy—I would recognize his high-pitched laugh anywhere. Hearing their voices without being able to see them made them sound cruel and hateful.
“I can’t believe it,” one of them said. “That little dweeb. I would feel so … so violated.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t beat his ass right there,” a deep voice that sounded like Bixley said.
“I would have, but that fatty is faster than you think. I got him with the towel though.”
“Hate to be his roommate.”
“They’re probably both queers.”
“I would’ve killed him,” Bixley said. “I swear, if any of you ever gets wood in the shower, I’ll kill you.”
“Bend over and grab your ankles, bitch!”
With my hands covering my ears, I forced myself to reread the message written on the back of the stall door.
Give me my robe, put on my crown
I go to seize the porcelain throne
For I have immortal longings in me
That will droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Twenty minutes earlier, I had been lying in bed writing an essay on French colonialism for composition. Benjamin had left to take a shower, and Fleetwood Mac was playing “You Make Loving Fun” on the radio. Benjamin had brought his radio from home, but because it only played 8-tracks, we were stuck listening to staticky 96.9 FM out of Miskapaug—the only radio waves to reach the island. To make matters worse, the reception would cut out sporadically, leaving the room in dead silence.
Suddenly Benjamin burst into the room. Still wet from his shower, he slammed the door behind him, but not before Loosy-Goosy’s high-pitched yell shrieked into the room: “Fag in the shower!”
Each night Benjamin returned from the shower in shorts and a nightshirt. Had it not been for his damp hair combed neatly to the side and the residue of moisture on his glasses, I wouldn’t have known he had ever gotten wet. But now he stood before me in a towel that barely covered his waist, with water streaming down his hairless chest, with glasses so fogged over that I had trouble finding his eyes. Seeing him like this—trembling, bare-chested, his pudgy belly jiggling with every movement—his obesity was impossible to ignore.
He threw his back to the door, his eyes as wide as they had been in the lighthouse. Only now, instead of paralysis, his fear energized him, causing him to look in every direction at once. When he twisted to one side, several red marks stood out on his shoulder like the stripes of a tiger.
“J-Jacob, you c-c-can’t believe them. It’s not t-true. None of it.”
Voices congregated outside our door. Benjamin flinched every time he heard the word “faggot.”
“Okay, Ben. I believe you.”
“It’s entirely a-a misunderstanding. N-nothing even happened.” But as he spoke, he looked in the mirror as if trying to convince himself instead of me.
Then Loosy-Goosy shouted above the clamor: “That’ll be the last time you check another guy out in the shower, homo! I’m gonna cut those gay balls right off!”
“N-N-N-NO I N-N-NEVER!” Benjamin screamed, spinning to face the door. “I n-never checked n-no one out!”
“B-B-B-Bailey’s a q-q-queer!” Loosy-Goosy sang. “Bailey’s a queer from Rhode Island.”
This was followed by pounding on the door, and in an attempt to drown out the noise, Benjamin ran over and cranked the volume on the radio. But the sound of Christine McVie singing “You Make Loving Fun” obnoxiously loud only seemed to incite those in the hall, for the door continued to rattle and shake from the fists and feet that beat it. Benjamin rushed over and pressed his weight against the door.
Fleetwood Mac’s upbeat lyrics cast the entire scene in a bizarre light: Benjamin’s half-nude body convulsing whenever the door shook, and all of Patterson Hall, all of Wellington it seemed, trying to pour into our room and obliterate us. The song droned on and on, the same absurd lyrics playing over and over, the door shaking from the fists and the fury of the unseen mob at our doorstep.
Then, quite suddenly, everything stopped. Instead of fading out, the song died when the reception on the island cut out. Those outside had given up, their voices dispersing down the hall.
The silence was deafening. Benjamin sank to the floor, crying like on so many nights before. But it was worse now, somehow more pathetic, more emasculating, and for the first time he had the modesty to cover his face. He sat mumbling to himself in a blubbery voice I could only half-understand.
“I thought it would be different here. I thought it would be different because … because everyone is so smart. But it’s the same. It’s the same as anywhere else.” He took his glasses off and wiped his eyes. “They couldn’t have hoped for anything better. Now they have a reason to hate me.”
This admission brought on a fresh round of tears, and I forced myself to look away. I wanted more than anything to leave, but Benjamin blocked the door.
Then he whispered something, probably to himself, but the room was so deathly quiet, his words reached me.
“It’s just like Scout camp. All over again.”
When I looked over, his towel had slipped up past his bent knee, revealing more than I ever wanted to see.
“Well at least cover yourself up, would ya?”
I left the room in a hurry. Later I would feel guilty for leaving him like that, but nothing I could have said would have made things better; nothing would make the living hell that awaited him each day he remained at Wellington go away.
I stayed in the stall until after lights-out. When I returned to our room, Benjamin was lying in bed, facing the wall. It felt like forever before I fell asleep in the ensuing silence.
* * * * *
Benjamin changed almost overnight, waking up (if he had slept at all) a stranger. When he went to shower that night, everyone chanted “Mr. Peepers” until he scurried back to our room. He tried Buchanan Hall’s lavatory next, but encountered a similar scene, as everyone had been warned of Mr. Peepers. Benjamin didn’t shower for three days. Finally, on the fourth night, he waited until lights-out before showering in the dark.
As it had done to the Headliners, the group turned on Benjamin. But where we had found our escape in each other, Benjamin had nothing besides an hour-long phone conversation with his parents each night. Little remained of the loquacious, bright-eyed boy who had spoken so highly of Wellington. His long-winded, one-sided conversations had digressed into a sullen, lonely silence. He had given up on Wellington and was now just serving his time, waiting until Friday when the four o’clock ferry would carry him back to his old life. The school had taken away his optimism, his words, even his tears; for
each night after lights-out, our room lay in silence.
Benjamin distanced himself from me as well. Despite being roommates, we went our separate ways. When I wasn’t with the Headliners, I was fencing or helping Max. There was safety in numbers with my friends, and the lighthouse became an oasis that I retreated to three afternoons a week. As students weren’t allowed in Oak Yard, the heart of Wellington’s campus ironically kept the school at bay.
There was no end to the remnants of the lighthouse. Bucket after bucket of corroded, unsalvageable junk descended from the tower. Each load yielded an assortment of rusted iron works, broken machine fragments, bronze shafts dulled with age, concentric metal rings, and broken shards of curved glass that made the bucket unbearably heavy.
When I arrived at the lighthouse and found the bucket empty on the floor, Max’s voice came over the walkie-talkie, instructing me to join him in the lantern room. I ascended the vine-enshrouded staircase as fast as my feet would carry me, bypassed the landing, and climbed through a wooden hatch in the ceiling. The afternoon sunlight streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the lantern room that was empty save a tattered hammock hanging from the wall beside a rack of fishing poles. A circle of rust stood out from the otherwise bare floor.
Max was speaking to a man in a double-breasted coat. A yellow badge in the shape of a lighthouse was set above the visor of his dark cap. He had a pale complexion and jet-black hair. He looked too old to be a student, too young to be a teacher, and dressed too warmly for the bright September day.
“You must be the keeper of this lighthouse,” he said, shaking my hand. “It is a pleasure to meet you, young sir. You may call me Mr. Noble, and I am humbly at your service.” Then he resumed his conversation with Max as if knowing my name wasn’t necessary.
“A first order is too much,” Max said. “It’s more than we’ll ever need.”
“More than you need?” Mr. Noble said politely. “Of course it’s more than you need. If you were to stand up here and wave a flashlight, it would be more than you need. You don’t need anything. It’s all for show, all for razzle-dazzle.”
“It’s still too much.”
“The Rhode Island State Treasury is footing the bill. You should feel privileged to live in a state that values its history enough to bring its past back to life, even if for a night of political debate.”
As the two men went back and forth, my surprise that a stranger had entered our remote corner of the school began to wear off. Mr. Noble looked razor-sharp next to Max, who was wearing his customary flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Mr. Noble’s intense features made him look intellectual to the point of being sickly, like he was recovering from a long-term illness. The color and fabric of his long coat and hat, though regal, were faded. With his coat collar stuck straight in the air, he looked prepared to weather out a storm.
“But we don’t have the infrastructure to support it,” Max was saying. “We don’t have the juice, and the size alone is—”
“Not much larger than the old lens,” Mr. Noble finished. “The Fresnel lens has made tremendous advances. We’re talking state-of-the-art here. One-and-a-half million candlepower light contained in a device that stands eight feet ten inches tall, and a hair less than seven feet in diameter. I can assure you, Mr. Erikson, it will fit inside this room.”
“Sounds great once it’s up and running. But how do you plan on getting it up here?” Max asked, crossing his arms. “That old bucket down there is all we got. And don’t think for a second I’ve got time to reassemble anything up here. I’m spending too much time on this project as it is.”
Mr. Noble looked at me like he had just been struck with a brilliant idea. “We’ll pop the top right off this tea kettle!”
“Huh?”
Mr. Noble pointed to the ceiling. “We’ll drop it in from above. It’s the only way.”
“Drop it in? In case you forgot, we’re standing at a hundred and twenty-five feet. All’s we have is that little Insley we’re using on the south wing. Its fifty-foot boom wouldn’t reach halfway, and we don’t have any extensions or counterweights. And getting a big enough crane all the way out here—”
“Trust me, a crane won’t be necessary,” Mr. Noble said, turning away.
“Trust you?” Max said, getting red in the face. “Excuse me if I’m overstepping my bounds, but I have a right to know exactly how a ten thousand pound lens is going to magically appear in my lighthouse. Maybe you boys from the Coast Guard are so good that you can catapult the son of a bitch up here, but I need to know about it.”
“All in good time, Mr. Erikson. Trust me, we boys from the Coast Guard have a tried and true method. You have my word. No experiments will be conducted on your lighthouse. We, more than anyone, wish to preserve such a fine specimen.”
“You’re going to put a new light in here?” I asked.
“That’s exactly right, young sir,” Mr. Noble said. “We’re going to light this torch up with so much juice it’ll make the morning rooster crow and the full moon blush. And you’re going to help make it possible.”
“I am?”
“Of course. Mr. Erikson has informed me of your talents. This magnificent feat could not possibly be done without your assistance. The hours will be long and tedious, but the result will be visible for miles around. What do you say? Can I count on you?”
What could I say? Anything sounded exciting compared to removing buckets of junk.
Max stood with his hands on his hips, his attention rarely straying from the ceiling as Mr. Noble talked of all the lighthouses he had restored.
“No two are alike. There’s the heritage, the struggle of man versus the sea, the isolation of a rugged profession.”
“You sure paint a pretty picture,” Max said. His voice sounded jarring in the small confines of the lantern room.
“They once illuminated the night to guide ships safely to port,” Mr. Noble said, extending his tape measure across the room. “Now a lighthouse’s purpose is to illuminate the past, to those willing to open their eyes.”
Max responded with a grunt. “There’s nothing wrong with the past, as long as it doesn’t prevent me from my other work. The faculties’ families can’t move here until we get more rooms remodeled. So the more time I spend up here, the longer husbands will be apart from their families.”
“It looks like you spend quite a lot of time up here, indeed,” Mr. Noble said, glancing at the hammock.
When I noticed a few personal belongings on the floor, I realized this was where Max slept. It wouldn’t occur to me until later that perhaps the face I had seen peering out of the lantern room hadn’t been a ghost after all.
“I like to keep to myself,” Max said, not the least bit embarrassed. “I could do without so many teenagers running about. No offense, Jake. You’re better than most. It’s no mystery why their parents ship ‘em off eight months a year.”
“You remind me of my great-grandfather,” Mr. Noble said, looking at Max with admiration. “If ever there was a loner, it was him. He was a lighthouse keeper for thirty-eight years at Robbins Reef. And this, I am proud to say, was his uniform.” He ran his hands down the bronze buttons adorning the front of his coat. “Not exactly standard issue for the Guard, but I like to wear it in his honor whenever I have the privilege of frequenting a lighthouse. He loved his work—the peace, the solitude. It was a humble, thankless profession, but I like to think of all the immigrants who arrived safely in America because of him.
“But those days are over,” he added. “I’m confident that I speak the truth when I say that those men who toiled to make the coastlines of this great nation safe would be honored that you choose to spend your nights here, Mr. Erikson.”
Accustomed to working in silence, Mr. Noble brought some life into the lighthouse. He talked as we worked, and being the dramatic fellow that he was, talking encompassed his hands, leaving him very little to work with. Mr. Noble spoke passionately about the past and the dead profe
ssion of his great-grandfather, and rather dully about the present and, seemingly, his own lot in life.
He even talked Max into excusing me fifteen minutes early to show me the helicopter he had flown to the island, or “helo,” as he called it. As we were leaving Oak Yard, we came across Chris smoking a cigarette outside Kirkland Hall.
“That your Pelican?” he asked Mr. Noble.
“It actually belongs to the United States Coast Guard, young man,” Mr. Noble replied. “But yes, I am the pilot.”
“Don’t those new ones have the dual tail rotors?”
“… That’s actually the Seahawks,” Mr. Noble said, looking at Chris more closely. “The Navy always gets the new toys before we do.”
“They let you fly much?”
“Over twelve hundred hours logged,” Mr. Noble boasted. “You have an interest in flying, do you?”
“I’ve flown a Jetranger. I’m working on getting instrument-rated.”
“Really? That’s fantastic. I think you’ll find aviation to be a most rewarding experience. And you’ve gotten such an early start.”
“I was born to fly.”
Mr. Noble smiled politely. “Well, confidence is important for a young pilot. Tell me, do you two always dress alike?” he asked, pointing at our shirts. The only difference was that Chris had cigarette holes burned in his sleeves where he had seen how close he could get to singeing his arm.
“Everyone looks the same around here,” Chris said, flicking his cigarette into Oak Yard. “Except you.”
“That suits me just fine,” Mr. Noble said, straightening the high collar of his uniform. “Say, we were just on our way out to the helo. You can come along if you like. It’s not every day I run into someone interested in flying. Tell me, have you ever considered a career in the Coast Guard?”
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