The Lost Boys Symphony (22 page)

8
0 stopped to
rest every few minutes. The forest floor had been too much for the old man’s feeble footing even before the excitement of the morning. Henry didn’t want to help him, but any satisfaction he got from watching 80 struggle was far outweighed by his annoyance at the delay. He took the man’s elbow with one hand, held him around the waist with the other. They didn’t speak, and it felt like hours later when they broke into the clearing. 80 slumped against the boulder and pressed his cheek to it as he caught his breath. Henry was happy to be unencumbered but in no mood to sit down, so he paced the rock’s perimeter and tried not to look at the car in the gravel drive. He wondered where the keys were.

“What do you want?” said 80.

Henry stopped walking. The question was so vague that he was forced to consider all its possible meanings and the answers he might give for each.

“When you go home,” said 80. “What do you want? What do you wish would be waiting for you?”

“I don’t—it feels like enough to just be sane. I can figure the rest out from there.”

80 laughed. He bent forward on the rock and kicked first one leg, then the other as if trying to shake out cramps.

“What’s so funny?” said Henry.

“What is sane going to be like for you, I wonder? After this, I mean. That’s where I think we went wrong, where I went wrong every single time. We thought it would be good to provide evidence for this, our most incredible delusion. We looked back and we thought,
If only I’d known it was real
. Hindsight is not twenty-twenty. We were blind.”

“I’m not sure this
is
real,” said Henry.

“
If only I’d understood back then
,
we thought,
I could have controlled myself.”

“And when I get home, like I said. Even if I remember this and think it really happened, as long as I’m not hallucinating—”

“But we were never going to control ourselves. We can’t control anything. 41, I’m sure he thinks he’s in control, just like I did—”

“—as long as I’m not afraid of everything, as long as I can think straight, I’ll figure it out—”

“—but don’t you see?” said 80.

“I don’t. I don’t understand. I don’t care. I just…I need to go home.”

“And I need to sit down.” 80 started walking toward the house.

Henry followed.

“You won’t be well,” said 80. “41 is off somewhere, some time. He’s playing with your future. He must be. And in order for you to become him someday, you’ll have to hear the music again. You’ll have to cultivate that ability. And that means that no matter how sane you feel, you’ll eventually pursue the insane. You’ll get lost in obsession. Just like I did. Just like 41. And once you start traveling, who knows?”

Henry trailed behind the old man. He knew he should care about what he was hearing, but he felt too angry, too bored, too confused. The old man’s words spewed out in a torrent, but before they penetrated Henry’s mind they hit a wall, crumbled into their constituent letters, fell to the ground like ashes.

“You’ll always be alone.” 80 took the stairs up to the screen door one at a time. Like a toddler, he placed both feet on each step before mounting the next.

Henry watched from behind and was grateful for the windowless room that awaited him, grateful that he’d soon be cocooned in its darkness, asleep on cool sheets. When he woke up he’d find the keys. 80 couldn’t stop him, and Henry didn’t care if 41 found him. He hoped he did.

“You have me to thank for that,” said 80.

“For what?”

“For being alone,” said 80, and he opened the door, stepped inside, turned to hold it for Henry. “For all of this. It’s my fault.”

Henry walked up the steps. When he was at eye level with his older self, he said, “I just want to change my clothes and go to sleep.”

“Listen to me,” said 80. “I’m sorry.”

Henry ignored him. He stepped over the threshold and into the relative dim of the living room.

“He’s not,” said a voice from the kitchen.

Henry looked at 80 with a silent question written in the folds of brow. But 80 had no answer. He looked even older than before, so pale and scared, his jaw trembling. Henry stepped through the living room and turned the corner onto the linoleum floor of the kitchen. At the head of the table, where 80 had been earlier that morning, was a man that Henry recognized despite his shorn hair and clean-shaven face.

“Go ahead and change,” said 41. “The clothes are in the basement, just where you left them a couple hours ago. We’re leaving.”

80 entered the room behind Henry. “No,” he said.

“It’s over,” said 41.

“We can fix this.”

“There’s nothing to fix. Let’s go, Henry. ”

“I don’t understand,” said Henry.

“He doesn’t hear the music,” said 41. “He can’t take you home, but I can. So come on, get dressed. We’re going back to the bridge.”

“What?” said 80. He advanced on 41, who sat back in his chair and slumped down. He looked bored. “Where are you taking him?” said 80. He leaned down and pressed a knobby index finger against 41’s sternum.

“Home,” said 41.

“No,” said 80. He whirled around and paced back toward Henry, eyes wet with despair. “We didn’t take you anywhere, Henry. You’re in your own time. You’re already home.”

“He’s lying,” said 41.

“Think about it,” said 80, “we got you from the bridge and brought you here, that’s all.”

Henry shook his head. “I was unconscious on the bridge. And just before, in the woods. I just asked you when I was and you wouldn’t answer. You were lying then or you’re lying now and either way you’re a liar.” He turned to leave the room, but 80 caught him by the arm and held tight.

“I’ll prove it,” said 80. “Come with me—I’ll drive you to Mom’s. I’ll show you. You can’t go to the bridge with him. I don’t know what he’s doing, but, God…” He let go of Henry and staggered to the sink, where he rested his arms on the rim and lowered his forehead to the curved faucet. “Where are you taking him?”

“Henry,” said 41. “He doesn’t remember being you. He doesn’t know what you’re thinking or what this has done to you or what it has yet to do. I do. You have to trust me.”

80 laughed and tapped his head against the metal spout.

“You wanted oblivion,” said 41. “Maybe you didn’t even know it, but all you wanted was to destroy everything, to disappear, to remove us from the world piece by piece. You should be thanking me. In the time it took you to walk back to the house I’ve spent months making sure that you get your wish. As soon as I get 19 back to where he belongs, this is over.”

80 shot upright and slammed his hands on the edge of the sink. “And where do you think he belongs?” he yelled. He stepped back between his two younger selves and Henry flinched as 80 stepped toward him. “Wherever this man—”

“
This man
?”
said 41. He laughed and the sound was thin and caustic. Henry suddenly felt afraid.

80 took one more step forward and opened his eyes so wide that it seemed they might fall out of his face and hit the floor. “Wherever this man is taking you, it’s not your home,” he said, slowly, as if to ensure that he was being understood. “It’s a mistake to leave with him. You must understand that.”

“I don’t understand anything!” said Henry. “How many times do I have to say it? You’re both fucking crazy.”

“You’re right,” said 41, “and if you come with me now you’ll be rid of us forever. Go with him and I’ll be knocking on your door a day from now, a week, it doesn’t matter. I’ll find you, Henry. I’ll always find you. And the truth is, I’m not really giving you a choice about this, because that choice would be a lie—the same lie that 80 told me. Go change. Now.”

80 spoke with the same grave cadence as before. “Listen to him, Henry. Is that who you want to become?”

“Fuck it,” said 41. He jumped up and rushed forward, tossed 80’s body aside as he passed. The old man hit the refrigerator and crumpled. Henry turned to run, but 41 kicked his ankles out from underneath him and jumped on top of him. Henry thrashed but 41 had him pinned on his stomach, the side of his face pressed into the cold kitchen floor.

“Stay still,” said 41. “It’s almost over.”

Henry felt a sharp pain deep in his thigh. He cried out, placed his palms on the ground, and pushed hard until he’d lifted both himself and 41 off the ground by an inch—just enough to give him leverage—but just as he was about to try to turn his body to the side, his arms collapsed beneath him. He felt cold and rigid but somehow warm and loose, too. A shiver jackhammered his jaw and then relented, and when it was over he was still. Everything was still. He could hear breathing, labored and loud, and for a moment he recognized that it was his own, but then the idea of
his own
lost its meaning and he felt himself dropping down fast toward blackness.

A voice echoed through the dark.
“
What did you do?”
it said, and Henry felt with dreamlike intensity the absolutely overwhelming need to respond coupled with the urgent fear that he didn’t know the answer.

Another voice interrupted his anxious searching.
“
Say goodbye,”
it said.

Henry tried to move his lips in response to the command, but he couldn’t. He descended faster and a rushing sound like the wind through leaves gave way to silence. The black overwhelmed him and he disappeared.

G
abe didn’t know
why Val was frantic on the phone. It was a Friday afternoon. They already had plans for later that night. But then she called from the train, told him she was on her way and please could he be at the house when she got in. Gabe called the Dragon and said he was sick. It was a lie when he said it, but by the time he’d waited an hour and a half for Val to show up at his door, it had become the truth. What started as a seed of suspicion blossomed into horrific, illogical certainty. She would end it. It had been a month since they got together. He loved her. That it was too good to be true was a given. He’d expected her to break it off before, but she hadn’t, and now she would. It seemed obvious.

Gabe wanted to leave his house, make her find him, or maybe just never talk to her again. Maybe just disappear altogether, like Henry had.

And yet up through the pain and fear a strange little bubble of relief was rising from deep in his gut. It was wrong that they should be together. Henry was still missing.

The man hadn’t appeared again either, not since that afternoon in the living room. The music had continued intermittently, but Gabe hadn’t told anyone. Whatever was happening to him, he was sure it wasn’t the same as what had happened to Henry. Gabe was in control. He had adjusted.

He prepared for what he was sure would be his emotional evisceration by doing absolutely nothing. He sat on the porch so that he could watch her walk down Hamilton from downtown. Each solitary figure in the distance started out as her before resolving into some stranger. With his eyes so engaged, Gabe’s peripheral vision caught the movement of every bush, tree, bird, and neighborhood cat. Everything was Val until he looked at it carefully and proved that it was not. Finally he saw a smudge approaching on the other side of Hamilton that moved in a familiar way. The bounce looked right, and the general color scheme. She approached, making no sign that she knew she was being watched, and Gabe understood that he’d never seen the way she carried herself when she was alone. He let himself imagine her as a stranger. She was pretty, but not shockingly so, her gait purposeful. She came closer and Gabe could see that she held her head low, her eyes fixed on the ground in front of her. He wanted to remember the moment, perhaps one of the last during which she would be his.

She stopped on the opposite corner and waited for an opening in the steady flow of traffic. When she saw her chance, she jogged across the road, hands still in her pockets, then came to an abrupt stop at the bottom of the steps. She looked up at him and he could see from her darkened eyelashes and rosy nose that she’d been crying.

“Can I come in?” she said, but just barely, the words aborted by a shuddering, pathetic little sob.

Once inside, they sat on the edge of his bed, as far from each other as it was possible to be. He didn’t ask her what was wrong. He didn’t want to know yet. Val opened her mouth to speak, but it closed itself and tightened into a wide line. She cried with her whole body until it collapsed and she slipped off the edge of the bed and onto her knees. She shuffled toward him awkwardly and lay her face on his thigh while hugging him around the waist. Gabe felt a tinge of anger. He was done with this histrionic prelude.

“Please just say you’ll forgive me,” she said.

“What happened?” He was surprised to hear the comforting tone of his own voice. He tucked some loose hair behind her ear and wiped a tear from the bridge of her nose. Another fell in its place. “Just tell me. Whatever it is we’ll work it out.”

“You can’t know that.”

“Not until you tell me.”

She lifted her head from his leg and peered up, her eyelids swollen like flower buds, the corners of her mouth turned down. She looked perfect that way, Gabe thought, but that made no sense and it made him feel horrible.

“I need something to drink,” she said.

He gently pushed her arms from his lap and went to the kitchen, thinking of their first real night together, how it had started with their lips touching the same glass. He wondered if this would be the last time he’d touch her like he had a right to.

He returned with water. She was nestled into the corner of the bed with her legs crossed underneath her. He handed her the glass and crawled up to sit across from her. Their knees touched.

“I did something,” said Val. “I need to tell you everything. I’ll understand if you hate me, but I can’t not tell you. There’s nobody else I can talk to. I know how unfair that is.”

“Just…please,” he said, fighting to keep his patience.

She took a long drink of water and then handed Gabe the glass. He leaned back and snaked his arm over the edge of the bed to set it on the ground. He sat back up. “Tell me.”

“So these girls, they go out every Thursday.” She stopped. Gabe put a hand on her leg and she grasped it. “I’ve just been feeling really lonely, you know? Not when I’m with you, or when I’m talking to you, but all the time besides that. I feel like we’re doing something real, and I want it, but I’m not paying attention to the life that I fought to have. A life away from fucking New Brunswick, and Henry, and you.” She glanced up into Gabe’s eyes, gauging his reaction. He was still. “When I’m not with you I’m a mess. I don’t think you know that.”

“I’m a mess too,” said Gabe.

“You’re just saying that.”

“No, I’m not. I told you I thought I was losing my mind. I wasn’t exaggerating. It’s gotten much better, but for a little while I was really scared.”

She breathed in deeply and nodded. “But don’t you think it’s weird? We’re both living these lives that are all fucked up and broken. Then we come together and act like nothing is wrong? We don’t talk about Henry at all, at least not since those first few times we hung out, and even then it was like we were afraid that he would pop out of the closet or something.”

“There are these girls, you said. What does that have to do with it? What happened?”

“I don’t know. It’s hard to explain.” She motioned vaguely to the desk. He understood and leaned back to get the roll of toilet paper that he kept there in lieu of tissues. Val blew her nose, the loud trumpeting incongruent with the stillness of the room. “So we went to this club. I just—we went to this club and I don’t know. I was so drunk, Gabe. So drunk.”

Gabe felt a spark of understanding. Then pain. He was torn between needing her to continue and desperately wanting her to stop.

“It was really dark and I just started thinking, like, what did I come here for? Who am I supposed to be here if not somebody that can just take advantage of the kind of—but I didn’t mean for it to happen. Please, Gabe, believe me. It wasn’t because I wanted to hurt you. If anything it was because I knew how much I wanted this and I was afraid of what that meant. It doesn’t make any sense, but that’s how it feels. I just—God, what’s wrong with me?”

“What happened?” said Gabe. “Stop crying.”

“I can’t,” she said.

Gabe was mad then, but still he saw her vulnerability and pain as something beautiful. His disgust at that only made him angrier.

“There was a man,” she said. “He was older. He was buying me drinks.” Val took a moment to catch her breath. “I was just really drunk, and I felt like—God, it’s so embarrassing. It’s probably something he’s perfected, some technique he uses with younger girls who are too fucking stupid to know any better. Or maybe I was just too drunk. But at the time, he made me feel in control, like I knew what I wanted.”

Gabe turned away from her and dangled his legs over the edge of the bed. “What happened?” he said. He wasn’t sure what it was that he was feeling, but he couldn’t look at her anymore.

“We had sex.”

Gabe leaned forward, elbows on knees, the heels of his hands digging hard into the hollows of his eyes. He wanted to get away from her. He wanted to break something. Anything. The walls, Val’s perfect fucking nose, the bed frame, the bones in his hand. He lifted his fist, then brought it down hard onto the flesh of this thigh. He heard Val gasp, but at least she didn’t touch him. The pain was too brief so he did it again. It hurt more the second time, and he closed his eyes to give the sensation his full attention. His breath, so hard to control a moment before, came easier after that.

“Nothing else about it matters, Gabe. Nothing except that as soon as it was over I felt worse than I’ve ever felt.” She cried, uncontrollably this time. It was an ugly, wet cry. Gabe hated her for it. Seeing her spasm and wail, hearing the sounds of drowning from her tensed throat, he wanted to slap her and shake her like men did in old movies.

Get ahold of yourself.

It was funny.

Val kept crying. Gabe turned around again and watched her as if from far in the future, as if it wasn’t happening at all. The longer it went on, the steadier his pulse became. Eventually he wasn’t angry anymore, just sad. And though it was humiliating, he began to pity her more than he pitied himself. Her legs were still crossed beneath her, but she was bent over at the waist. It made it difficult for him to hold her, but he got as close as he could and slipped his hands around her belly, rested his cheek on her shoulder.

Val’s crying was all Gabe could hear for a time. It didn’t mix with any other sounds, didn’t meld and merge and take flight into a symphonic hallucination. It was a song unto itself. Gabe listened with his eyes closed as it peaked and, eventually, quieted.  Val rose up and Gabe lifted himself off her. She found the roll of toilet paper and blew her nose again, then interrupted her sadness to fixate with disgust on the disintegrating paper that was stuck to her finger. Gabe took the used wad and pulled a new sheaf off the roll. Val took it with a grateful nod.

“As soon as it was over, I just knew I only wanted you.” She lifted her head and put her face close to Gabe’s, so close that he couldn’t focus his eyes and she remained doubled up, a tangle of loosely connected features. “It’s like I’ve been resisting it, like I didn’t want to admit that we were really doing this. I knew I wanted it but I couldn’t give in, because of everything that’s happened.”

“Me too,” said Gabe.

“That’s it?” she said. “Please, just say something else. I know you’re mad, I know I fucked up. Just say something.”

She was right, of course. He was mad. But feeling her that close to him, breathing in her distinctive smell, he knew he wouldn’t hold this mistake against her. He was too weak for that. Or maybe too strong. He wasn’t sure. Whatever it was that she’d done, it had brought her to his door, professing that she didn’t want to be without him. Did he really care to know more? And if he would soon forgive her, as he knew he would, what could be the point of the kind of heat-of-the-moment outburst to which he felt inclined?

“It hurts,” he said. “I’m angry. But you’re here.”

Val started to cry again. Gabe felt manipulated, a specific blend of impotent inner violence and futile resentment that always accompanied the knowledge of being played. But she cried and he held her. She felt so good crumpled up against him. Val released herself from his arms and lay down on her side. Gabe lay down too. He pushed his body against her and squeezed her from behind harder than he thought she could take.

Val gripped one of his hands, her bony knuckles tightening painfully on his own. She held her breath.

“I’m a bad person, I guess,” she said.

“Me too.”

After a long silence, as if it were a completely natural extension of their conversation, Val said, “Henry might not be back.” Whether she said it for Gabe’s benefit or for her own, he couldn’t tell. It was just the truth, bald and naked and horrible. But for all that, it was undeniably attractive.