The Lost Boys Symphony (5 page)

T
he door to
the bedroom Henry woke up in was one of three in a hallway. He saw the other two to his left when he stepped out. 80 led him to the right.

“Look around,” said 80.

Henry followed him into a kitchen lined with unremarkable wood cabinets. It smelled of fruit peelings and stale spices. He was relieved to confirm that he was not in a hospital. 80 sat down at a small table at the back of the kitchen. There was a seam for a leaf, but the room didn’t seem big enough to accommodate it. 80 tinkered with some crumbs that had been left on the dark wood surface.

There was a small window over the sink and two larger ones behind the chair in which the old man sat. They looked out onto a bright day, supernaturally green, as if the grass and the leaves of the deciduous trees outside had soaked up their fill of the sun and were radiating it back up into the sky. Henry walked back toward the room he woke up in. Stepping left immediately after exiting the kitchen, he found himself in a simply furnished living room. There was a blue couch with a fine white diamond pattern, a worn-looking armchair, and a wooden coffee table on which sat two empty mugs.

It was quiet inside the house. From outside came the endless rolling sound of birds. It would peak as some unseen excitement caused a swell in the tittering, then decrescendo for a few seconds before rising again. Through the big bay window behind the couch Henry could see a lawn rolling down a short hill, ending abruptly at a dense wall of forest. All the way to the right of the window was a door that opened inward onto a slate-paved entryway and a staircase leading up. There were empty coat hooks on the wall and a shoe rack on the floor. The door was open and through the screen came the scent of honeysuckle mixed with something rotten and sickly-sweet that was not entirely unpleasant.

Henry stepped to the couch and turned around to sit down. On the wall in front of him were two large rectangles of lighter white on a background of dingy eggshell. 80 walked in from the kitchen with a plate of crackers, set them on the table, and sat down in the armchair to Henry’s right.

“Where did the pictures go?” asked Henry.

“Previous owners. I’ve always felt I should put something else up there but I’m not sure what.”

“That room I just came out of, it’s weird,” said Henry. “It doesn’t fit with this house.”

80 nodded.

“I thought I was in a mental hospital.”

“Until you got here, we didn’t know what kind of state you were going to be in. We had to make preparations. We knew you were sick.” 80 waved a hand in the air as if in apology. “The moment I saw you I knew you wouldn’t be any trouble, but we couldn’t have known that before. Not for sure. Usually, what you went through—the music on the bridge—usually it sets you straight for a while. But we didn’t really know.”

Henry was famished. He grabbed three crackers from the plate and bit into all of them at the same time. It felt strange to eat crackers in someone else’s oversized pajamas. He felt like a child. “This house is old,” he said. “It feels familiar. Where are we?”

80 opened his mouth to speak, but the sound of a door opening upstairs interrupted him. There were footsteps and the sound of another door closing. Water ran through the pipes, a hollow sloshing that Henry found comforting. “Who’s that?” he said.

“Do you remember vacationing in the Catskills when you were younger? There was a small cabin, a bit dingy—a diner downtown where your mom would buy you pancakes?”

Henry tried not to let the shock register on his face.

“That cabin,” said 80, grabbing another cracker for himself, “is about fifteen miles from here. The diner is close by too, down in town. Unfortunately we won’t be going there.”

“No pancakes?” said Henry. “Why didn’t you just say ‘We’re in the Catskills’?”

“We’re in the Catskills,” said 80.

“Where are my clothes?”

A door opened upstairs. Muted footsteps approached the top of the staircase and descended. Before Henry saw the man walking down the steps he heard his voice. “You puked all over yourself. Where do you think they are?” A pair of feet appeared first. Then a hand came into view. It held a pair of shoes, a sock hanging out from inside each one.

Henry blanched when the man’s head appeared. Now, in the light of day, it was more obvious but somehow less frightening. The man looked like Henry to an astonishing degree, except older. There was gray in his big, bushy beard, and he had hair past his shoulders. His voice was darker and fuller, but undoubtedly Henry’s own. Perhaps strangest were the man’s hands. Henry recognized everything: the proportion of fingernail to finger, joint to joint; the dried, split cuticles aggravated by years of nail biting; the way the first knuckle of the right pinkie was raised up and oddly angled after a teenage break that he’d never had treated.

“Your clothes are in the wash, in the basement,” said the man. “Nobody is trying to make you feel like a child. What you’re wearing is just all we had. Keep thinking that way, though. Ask questions. Be paranoid.” He leaned over to bring his face closer to Henry’s, an aggressive look in his eye. “It’ll make it harder for the old man to fuck with your head.”

The man sat down on the coffee table, his back turned to both Henry and 80. He got his socks and shoes on quickly, then stood and turned around.

“Look at me,” said the man.

“I am.”

“Don’t believe anything this man tells you.”

Henry followed the man’s pointing finger until he was looking at 80, who smiled in the way a parent of a misbehaving child might smile at his dinner guests. It was an embarrassed apology, but not for himself.

“You heard me, right?” said the bearded man. “Don’t trust this man. He doesn’t know who you really are. He knows a lot of details, but that’s it. The details don’t matter.”

“That’s enough,” said 80, but Henry could tell he didn’t really believe it would make a difference.

“You’re right,” said the bearded man. “That’s enough for now. I’m hungry.” He left the room.

Henry looked back at 80, who was staring at him intently, as if waiting for something. “Do you see?” said 80.

Henry nodded. “I see. But I thought I was better when I woke up. I still feel better.”

“You’re better for now,” said 80.

“I don’t think so.”

Henry heard the suction of the refrigerator door opening in the kitchen, pans being rattled, a cupboard slamming shut.

80 stood up and walked out, but Henry didn’t follow. He went to the screen door at the bottom of the stairs and stared through the mesh. A streak of red crossed the yard—a cardinal or something like it. He could hear conversation from the kitchen but couldn’t make out the words. It didn’t matter. He needed food, though. Real food. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten, and the crackers had only made him conscious of his hunger while doing nothing to sate it.

He walked toward the smell of browning butter, and when he was in the kitchen the bearded man said, “You’re hungry. Like, unbelievably hungry.”

“Yeah,” said Henry.

“You’ve been out for a long time. We drugged you, you know.”

Henry leaned against the doorframe.

“I guess 80 didn’t tell you.” The man cracked three eggs directly into the pan, then moved to cut three thick slices of bread off a big brown loaf. He arranged them on a baking sheet and put it into the oven. “It felt just like you closed your eyes on the bridge and opened them in the bedroom, but it didn’t really happen like that. We found you totally knocked out, put you in the car. The one out front.” The man was fiddling with the whites of the eggs in the pan, leaving the yolks untouched. “It’s a good long drive up here; you would have woken up. I gave you something on the bridge. Then again last night. You’ve been out for a pretty long time.”

“How long?” said Henry. He searched the kitchen for a clock but didn’t find one. It seemed strange. Kitchens always had clocks. “What time is it?” he asked.

“Good question,” said the bearded man.

“It’s about eleven thirty in the morning,” said 80.

“You see?” The man pointed a rubber spatula at Henry as he spoke. “You ask a question and 80 answers it but he doesn’t
really
answer it. He gives you the information you specifically ask for and no more. It’s never the information that he knows you actually need.”

“Why do you have to be so combative?” said 80. He seemed genuinely pained.

Henry felt awkward. He knew he was at the center of the cold war these two were waging, but he had no idea what it was about. He had no personal stake. He just wanted it to stop.

The bearded man picked up the frying pan and yanked it perfectly, a quick backwards jolt that sent the eggs up in the air to flip once before landing back in the pan with a wet slap. “Dammit,” he said. “Broke a yolk.”

80 snorted. “So you’re going to just ignore me?”

The other man pointed at the pan. “I’ll take that one, I guess. Toast needs a minute.” He got three plates from a cabinet next to the window above the sink, portioned out the eggs, added salt and pepper. “I always do that. Just forget to heat the oven beforehand, or to cut the bread or whatever.” He rested one hand on the counter, leaned into it with his hip.

“Who are you?” said Henry.

“You know who I am,” said the man. “But you want to hear it. Need to. I remember.”

Henry nodded.

“He’s 80,” said the man with the beard. “I’m 41. And that makes you 19.”

T
he calls started
soon after Henry’s visit. Sometimes Henry would go on about peace and love, speaking of those concepts as if they were tangible, as if they were the only things that existed in the world. In this manic state, he spun fantasies about how New Brunswick could become the new seat of artistic expression in America. Long habit had programmed Gabe to automatically empathize with his best friend, to try his best to find a way to agree with him. But the fact that New Brunswick had become Henry’s best hope for salvation was just too sad to believe. More often, Henry went on about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and spun long monologues about the clandestine activities of the NSA and the CIA. Henry talked about war, torture, and death as though he were living all those things personally, as if he had the power to change everything if only he could figure out how. Gabe found this easier to take. At least Henry’s paranoia was grounded in the real world, even if it was a bit extreme.

Then Gabe started ignoring the calls, but sending Henry to voice mail a few times would only feed his already healthy guilt until he felt duty-bound to answer again. Spending a half-hour listening to Henry’s schizoid ranting was the least Gabe could do, he thought. But then the end of the school year approached, and Henry, knowing that Gabe would soon be free of classes, started asking about a visit. Gabe didn’t know how to say no.

It was a warm Wednesday morning when he packed an overnight bag and got on a train headed north. He transferred at Secaucus and soon arrived in the leafy suburb of his youth. Henry was in the parking lot across the street from their favorite coffeehouse. He was leaning against his car, skinnier than Gabe remembered, skinnier than it seemed possible for a person to be. Gabe moved in to hug him but then wished he hadn’t. Henry smelled like death, but sharper, like roadkill soaked in apple cider vinegar.

Gabe stepped back. “Hey,” he said.

Henry nodded and got in the car. Gabe hesitated. Was it safe to be in a car with his friend? He thought of Jan. She spent every day with Henry. If she thought he was safe to drive, then Gabe supposed he had little to worry about. He got in and held his breath until he could roll down his window.

“So what’s happening?” said Gabe.

Henry smiled. “You know.”

“Um,” said Gabe. “No. I don’t.”

Henry laughed.

A few painfully silent minutes later, they arrived at the house. Despite the circumstances, Gabe was happy to see it. It reminded him of all those nights after Henry’s shows. Of Jan’s cooking. Of years of sleepovers when they were kids, how they would fall asleep while whispering about imagined futures taken straight out of the PG-13 action movies they’d seen on WPIX 11. They would both be detectives. They would marry twins. They’d share a house and have matching cars and fight drug dealers or evil ninjas or aliens.

When they walked in, Henry closed the door behind them and bent to the floor to pick up an aerosol can of air freshener. He shook it, then sprayed in straight lines along the seams of the door. Gabe instinctively willed himself to believe that it was a perfectly reasonable thing to do. He tried to come up with some rationale that would explain his friend’s behavior, but it was impossible.

“Hey,” he said, louder than he meant to. “What’s with the air freshener?”

“It’s…Sorry,” said Henry. “Should we play some music?”

“We could just talk or something.”

Henry stepped out of the foyer and through the door to the basement. Gabe hung his head and took a deep breath. He had assumed that Jan would be around, but the house was quiet. Had she known he was coming and left in anticipation? Or was she upstairs, hiding? He hoped it was the latter, if only because Henry suddenly seemed much more frightening than Gabe could have anticipated. He descended the carpeted steps to the basement.

Gabe wasn’t much of a musician, but he’d been friends with Henry for so long that he knew his way around lots of the instruments down in the practice room. In addition to the professional-grade gear that Henry had collected over the years, he had dozens of toys: a Fisher-Price glockenspiel; maracas hand-painted with a beach scene and the word
COZUMEL;
wooden turtle figurines that doubled as whistles. All the adults in his extended family had made a habit of buying musical tchotchkes for Henry whenever they were in tourist-trap markets or airport gift shops and he kept them all. Gabe grabbed an egg shaker and sat down on the futon in the corner. Henry lowered himself onto the stool behind his drum set and started playing, but every time he settled into a beat he would jump right out of it again. The arrhythmic din grew louder and more frantic, and Gabe stayed motionless. He watched Henry thrash.

Then Gabe stood and yelled, “I’m going outside.”

Henry crashed his ride cymbal repeatedly as he stood up, so hard that he seemed to be trying to break it. Gabe backed away and Henry threw his sticks down on the carpeted floor and laughed.

“So you’re coming with, then?” said Gabe.

“Hell yeah,” said Henry.

“You sure? It’s cool if—”

“Let’s go!”

Gabe walked up the stairs. Once safely outside, he lit a cigarette. Henry stepped out behind him, the aerosol can in his hand, and resealed the seams of the door with a fresh layer of dried roses and cinnamon. They both sat down. Gabe smoked. Henry breathed through his nose, his mouth locked in that same tight grin.

“Henry,” said Gabe, “I’m worried. This isn’t—this shit with the air freshener? You look like you haven’t eaten. Are you…have you been to a doctor or anything?”

Henry nodded. “They give me pills. They’re dangerous.”

“But you take them?”

“My mom’s pissed at me, I think. Everyone’s always mad. I’m moving back down to the house. Maybe next semester.”

Gabe didn’t want to encourage the fantasy, but he couldn’t think of a good way to discourage it, either. He said nothing.

Henry occupied himself with breaking a twig into ever smaller pieces. Minutes passed. Gabe was lighting another cigarette with the burning butt of his first when he caught motion in his peripheral vision. He looked up to see a doe and her fawn emerge from the woods bordering the end of the cul-de-sac. The pair approached Henry’s house and stopped when they were on his front lawn, mere yards from where Gabe sat. The doe seemed wary, never turning her eyes from the porch as she began to munch leaves from the bushes on the lawn.

Gabe watched, amazed. It wasn’t uncommon to see deer in the area. They were something of a nuisance, actually, and the town had done plenty to try to thin their numbers. But never had Gabe seen them get so close.

He looked at Henry, who smiled and nodded his head as if to say,
You see?

And for once, Gabe did. He sensed how dangerous it was to overempathize, but in that moment there was no escape. His vision widened. The green of the grass and blue of the sky grew more vivid and the quiet of the street felt tangible and alive, as if the whole world were breathing Gabe in. He let the feeling come. The deer seemed to be saying something with their presence, and a vulnerable part of Gabe sensed that it would be easy to just let go, to find mystical import in the moment, to float off into some other reality that was stranger and more beautiful than his own.

He stood up fast and the doe ran off, followed by her knob-kneed fawn.

“I have to go,” said Gabe. “I forgot. I have something to do. I need to go.”

“Now?” said Henry.

“Now. Yes. I’m sorry.”

“I’ll drive you.”

“No. I’ll walk.”

“You’re leaving?”

“I’m sorry.” Gabe walked away.

Gabe didn’t answer the phone after that. He’d been ruled by fear ever since the night Henry started laughing, but that fear had been vague and unfocused. He was never quite sure what he was actually afraid of. But now, after his visit to Henry’s house, to Henry’s world, Gabe understood. He didn’t want to go insane. And to talk to Henry—to join him in whatever reality had supplanted Gabe’s own—it was dangerous.

Voice mails piled up, but Gabe didn’t listen to them. It hurt to admit that Henry was truly gone, but that pain was seductive. To have irretrievably lost something—it was like a badge of honor. It felt meaningful, like something
real
was happening to him for the very first time. There was truth in his pain, the kind of truth that he’d read about in novels and seen in movies. An adult sort of truth, rooted in suffering.

Gabe didn’t leave New Brunswick for the rest of the summer. The guys he smoked pot with—mostly Cal’s friends, though a few kids from the dorm came through too—they all wanted to know what had happened, and Gabe surprised himself by acting like he knew. Without quite meaning to, he put together a story. Through repeat telling he refined his tone and shaped a narrative around the parts of the tale that got the strongest reaction. And with Henry cloistered away in his house, Gabe was pitied by proxy. He was consoled. He was told that there was nothing he could have done. The attention was welcome for a while. It made him feel important, or at least less alone. But the longer it went on, the more troubled Gabe felt. Henry’s story should have been his own. He was the one who’d lost everything.