The Keeper of Dawn (12 page)

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.