Every inch of his ascent produced another creak or rattle from the fence, another wince from DeMarco. He wondered if Huston could hear the sounds.
From his perspective at the top of the fence, with the rounded bar painfully hard against his crotch, the lighthouse seemed to stand out in sharper relief now, a silent shell. DeMarco balanced himself, felt the quickness of his heart, the ache in his shoulders. Then he slid his leg over the top rail as quietly as he could, achingly eased his body perpendicular to the ground, and hung there by his fingertips. The ground, he knew, could be no more than five inches below his feet. Unless the fence was erected along a cliff face. But that would mean that the lighthouse sat perched in midair.
He held on a few seconds longer, told himself to stop being so foolish, then uncurled his fingers and let himself drop. Logic promised that the ground was there but it still came as a surprise to him. He felt the jolt in his knees and hips. Stood with his face to the fence for a few moments to catch his breath. Then turned and walked as surely and quickly as he could toward the lighthouse.
The door at the bottom of the tower stood open. Maybe Huston had opened it, maybe it had been knocked open long ago. DeMarco took one step inside. The air smelled of closure, dampness, and mold. Now he pulled his cell phone from his pocket and flipped it open. Shone the blue light around the small, circular room. Graffiti scrawled on the naked stuccoed walls. A littering of trash, beer cans and bottles, wine bottles, cigarette butts, and food wrappers. An old woolen blanket, green and filthy and twisted into a stiff tangle. And in the far corner, a metal staircase corkscrewing toward the top.
DeMarco turned the ringer and vibrator off on his cell phone. Then pocketed the phone. Laid his left hand on the rusty rail of the staircase and began a slow ascent. Without the cell phone, he was in total blackness again. He tested each stair with his foot before settling his weight atop it. Kept waiting for the missing stair that would send him tumbling to the ground.
Discernment
Fifty
DeMarco felt the stairwell walls tightening around him but gradually detected a freshening of the air. All the lenses and mirrors would have been removed long ago when the lighthouse was decommissioned, and by now, vandals would have stripped the upper platform bare and smashed out all the windows. He could feel the coolness on his face now, the damp tickle of moist breeze.
His hand slid onto a downward curve in the stair rail and there was nothing beyond it. He leaned forward and felt in the darkness with his right hand, touched the rough planking of the upper platform. He was three steps from the top. He asked himself which way was north. Turning his head slowly, he felt for the touch of breeze on his face. Found it, rose another step higher.
The lake splashed against the rocks below. Far out in the lower darkness, a long broken string of dim lights glowed, a scattering of dull pearls. And between the center and the left end of that broken necklace, a shadow. A man standing with his back to DeMarco. A man leaning hard against the rail. DeMarco could hear the man’s breath, ragged and quick inhalations. The man’s shadow was as black as grief.
DeMarco searched his mind for the right words. A phrase that might pin the shadow to the rail instead of sending it leaping forward. For a few moments, he could think of nothing. His mind was a swirl of blackness. Then it came to him, and he said it without hesitation and tried to blend the whisper of his voice to the lake’s.
“‘It was many and many a year ago, in a kingdom by the sea…’”
An abrupt turn from the shadow. A damming back of breath. Both men stood motionless. Huston’s voice when he finally spoke was a barely audible rasp, a serrated breath drifting out toward the water. “‘That a maiden there lived whom you may know…by the name of Annabel Lee.’”
DeMarco said, “I’m sorry, Thomas. I can’t remember any more of it. I wish I could.”
? ? ?
Huston spoke without moving. “Ryan DeMarco,” he said.
“I’ve been trying all week to find you, my friend.”
Huston said nothing. DeMarco could not see his face, but he felt the man’s brokenness, the pain that comes from knowing that what is broken can never be made whole. DeMarco smelled dread in the air blowing in across the lake. He smelled grief and sorrow and despair. He felt the chill of the darkness and he felt the loneliness of the rocks on the battered shore below. And suddenly he was very tired again. He did not want to have to do anything else tonight. He eased himself down on the edge of the landing and leaned back against the wall. “I am so fucking tired,” he said.
It was a while before Huston spoke again. His voice was muted and reached DeMarco as if from another room, a whispering through thin walls. “I came up here to jump,” he said.
DeMarco told him, “I know you did.”