Dark Arts (9 page)

“Like I’m pure-ing,” Zachary said before
breathing deeply.

“Good, I’ve got a story to tell you,”
Maxwell said. He picked a cup up and drew water from a barrel
strapped into one of the rearmost long seats. “Feeling like some
water?”

“I don’t trust you, Max,” Zack said
calmly.

“All right, Bernie can give it to you, but
you’ve got to drink something, mate.”

Bernie took the plastic cup of water and
handed it to Zack, who grinned at him and slurped it loudly.

“You remember that nutter we met in
Rockland? Wouldn’t come out of his room?”

“Jeeeeeeves,” Zachary said. “I thought it
was funny because he sounded more British than you.”

“Right,” Maxwell said, smiling a little – a
good sign. “Did anyone tell you why he wouldn’t come out?”

“No, but I tried,” Zack said, drooling a
little water.

Bernie remembered it, they
were at the Nyack Motor Inn, and the desk clerk made the mistake of
telling them not to bother the only other person at that end of the
building, he was a resident named Jeeves who rarely left his room.
He remembered her saying that,
rarely
, not never, but Zack was sure
she said never, so later that night, after their gig down the road,
Zack got away from the band and started pounding on his door,
drunkenly inviting poor Jeeves to party at three in the
morning.

They were ejected from the Nyack Motor Inn,
and ended up sleeping in the bus that night. What Max was going to
do with that story, Bernie had no idea.

“So, I had some time to chat with the desk
clerk, and she told me all about Jeeves,” Max said calmly, taking a
seat on the bunk across from Zachary.

“She didn’t,” Zack said. He looked to
Miranda and held his glass out. “Refill! Water, it makes me
alive!”

Miranda smiled kindly at him and refilled
his glass. Zachary watched her every movement.

Maxwell waited until the plastic cup was
back in his hand before gently continuing with his story. He had to
start twice to get Zachary’s attention back, repeating; “The desk
clerk was very nice to me because she thought I had an interesting
accent,” clearly and slowly, leaning on his English accent.

“I heard you, Max,” Zachary said.

“All right,” Max said, smiling. “She said
Jeeves had a rare condition, where his skin was turning
orange.”

“No,” Zachary said skeptically.

“It’s true,” Bernie said. “I was there.”

“No shit?” Zachary asked.

“Absolutely,” Bernie reassured.

“But poor Jeeves,” Max continued. “It didn’t
stop at a little orange. Soon, he started looking about as orange
as you do,” he said, nodding at Zack’s bare chest, where the
reflection from the old yellow paint on the ceiling was tinting his
skin bright orange thanks to a mild sunburn.

Zack looked down at his chest and seemed a
little concerned. “Nope,” he said quietly to himself. “Nope,” he
repeated in an urgent, hushed whisper.

“In fact, everything he saw started to look
orangey-yellow,” Max said. “So I have to ask, are we looking a
little off color to you?”

Zack’s eyes darted to Miranda and Bernie
then back to Max, alarmed.

“See, Jeeves went to see his doctor, and he
told him that he’s fine, but there was only one solution for his
condition,” Max said as though he was breaking the most serious of
news, but gently. “You have to sleep a whole night through to the
dawn. There’s no other way. Oh, and stay well watered if you can,
because your skin needs the water to recover.”

“You’re lying, you’re, there’s no way,” Zack
said, looking at his chest, poking it.

“You can’t pick it! That’s
the worst thing for this condition,” Max said. “Because there’s
people out there who don’t understand, they don’t like people who
see everything in orange, who
look
orange.”

“Oh, my God,” Miranda whispered, hiding her
face in Bernie’s back, trying as hard as she could not to
laugh.

“There are people who walk around, watching
for the orange skinned.” Max whipped the orange peeler out of his
pocket and brandished it between them like a deadly weapon. “Who
will want to peel you!”

Zachary shrieked, tossed the plastic cup,
retreated into the back corner of the bunk and pulled the sheet up
between him and Maxwell. “Stay away!”

“Do you want to get better?” Maxwell
asked.

“Yes!”

“Good! Then sleep, drink water! Stay on the
bus where you’re safe,” he said, standing up and slowly backing
towards the front of the bus. “There are a lot of people out
there.”

“You’re such a fucker, Max! Don’t peel me!”
Zachary cried.

“I’m going to leave this with whoever guards
that door, and if you try to leave, they’re going to peel you like
an orange,” Max said in a matter-of-fact manner.

“I won’t leave,” Zachary whimpered.

“Good, you know the rules: no picking, drink
water, no leaving the bus, and sleep.”

“I know the rules,” Zachary repeated.

They made it off the bus, and Miranda buried
her face in Max’s T-Shirt and laughed so hard she could barely
breathe. “I can’t believe that worked,” she whispered after the
hysterics passed, and she leaned on Max with an arm around his
waist.

Max pointed at their backup guitarist and
crooked his finger. The guitarist walked over. “You got the acid
for him, you guard the bus.” Max planted the orange peeler firmly
in his hand.

“I didn’t buy it,” he replied.

“I know you’re lying,” Maxwell said. “Zack
there is too spazzy to deal with bikers when he’s sober, and I know
no one else would get it for him, so it’s you. You stay here ‘till
Zack’s back and don’t let him out.”

“What do I do with this?” Darren asked,
holding up the orange peeler.

“Threaten him with it if he tries to get
out,” Maxwell said, causing Miranda to snicker. “Trust me, should
keep him under control for a couple hours if you just let him keep
believing what I told him. He hasn’t peaked yet. Oh, and did you
get the shit back from him?”

“Yeah, but,” the guitarist started to
explain.

Max gently pushed Miranda away, then turned
to Darren and jammed his hands down both his pockets and forcefully
fished out a clear vial with an eyedropper. “None of this, thanks,”
he said as he uncapped it and dumped the contents onto the grass.
“Lots of older teens looking to make new mistakes here this
weekend, and I’m not going to have you selling or doing this shit
here,” Max recapped it and carefully put it in his pocket. “Not
even leaving you with residue.”

“Man, I wasn’t going to share, that’d be so
stupid,” Darren said.

“Now the only stupid thing you have to avoid
is letting Zachary off the bus for about six more hours. This isn’t
the kind of thing where you let stoned morons like him walk
around.”

“Fine,” Darren said. “Anything you say,
Master, swell.”

Maxwell put his arm around Miranda’s
shoulders, she put his arm around his waist and they started
towards the main house. “Beach,” she said.

“I’m knackered,” Max retorted. “You can go
swim though.”

“Nope, beach,” Miranda said, pulling at him.
“You can sleep on a towel down there. Catch a nap before dinner
with me.”

“Just make sure nothing falls on my head,”
Max replied, changing his direction towards the road leading
through the farm, down towards the shore, the cabins and the
beach.

Bernie couldn’t help but notice the faint
smile on Susanne’s face as she started to follow them. He caught up
to walk beside her.

“There are sparks above them, and trailing
behind them,” Susanne said so only Bernie could hear. “He is a good
man though, isn’t he? The destiny does not guarantee that.”

“He’s my best friend,” Bernie answered, it
was the most honest response he could give.

Maxwell was faced with a choice, try out his
new guitar, or to get to know Miranda that afternoon. The guitar
lost by a surprisingly large margin.

The cabins on the way to the beach were well
kept, despite Bernie and Max’s absence for most of the previous
three summers. Allen had a lot of helpful neighbors who traded days
at the cabin during the summer for services, and their work was
better than anything Maxwell, Bernie or Scott could do.

The year round and summer cabins were
arranged in two large half circles. Most of the smaller summer
cabins were in the outer ring with tree and foliage coverage
between. The larger, year round cabins were in the inner circle,
and some of them were large enough to have a small yard.

The largest of the cabins, number fourteen,
stood apart entirely, closest to the lake. It had two full storeys,
and Max was still surprised that he and the band would be staying
there with their guests. “Is there a bathroom down here, or is it
all still outhouses?” Miranda asked as they passed through the
heavy front door. It was made of thickly varnished medium sized
logs, Max remembered putting it in with the help of Bernie and
Scott while Allen put the hinges on.

“This cabin’s more a house,” Max said. “The
john’s just down there at the end.” He pointed down the hallway
past the kitchen.

“Okay,” Miranda said, walking towards the
hall. “I remember getting into big trouble when we were kids for
getting caught in the cabins. Whatever they thought we were doing
must have been so much worse than the truth, I couldn’t visit for a
week.”

“High cost for hanging out away from the
parents,” Maxwell agreed. He remembered stealing keys in the
off-season and sneaking off to a cabin with all his friends. It was
the first time they really got time away from their parents without
supervision, close by, but no one knew where they were. Nothing
really changed, Maxwell still had an acoustic guitar, Miranda still
played flute back then, and that was taken into the cabin, and
Bernie and Scott were right behind. If anything, they were too
young and too interested in being together as a group to get into
any serious trouble.

The real rascal business took place when
Maxwell and Bernie were thirteen. Scott and Miranda were twelve.
They snuck into a cabin and discovered a mostly full jumbo bottle
of peach schnapps. Everyone got into that precious supply, by the
time they got through half of it, Miranda was sound asleep, Bernie
was stumbling drunk and worried that his father would discover
them. Scott and Maxwell were taking turns on the bottle, both of
them were desperately ill later, leaving vomit deposits behind the
cabin, but their drunken sleepover was never discovered. Maxwell
still couldn’t smell peach schnapps without feeling a little ill,
however.

The ceilings in cabin fourteen were tall,
made of split logs with heavy beams for support. The main hearth
was an oddity, it actually had a cast iron screen that could close
it in, and heat pipes leading to other parts of the house. He
always thought it looked like it was grinning at him, when the iron
mask was brought together. During the summer the hearth doors were
open, it was clean and empty. A half circle of stones from the lake
surrounded the front of it, and hard wood floors with broad,
varnished boards surfaced the rest of the large room. There were
three large sofas against the walls, two six foot long hand made
side tables, and still enough room in the middle for a couple dozen
people to gather. Towards the kitchen there was another large room,
where a hand carved table and chairs for twenty-one people.

The cabin was rented for receptions, special
parties, and many other occasions, but the cost to outsiders was so
prohibitive, they almost always decided against it. Locals knew
that they could offer trade in services and some cash, Allen’s
preferred method of bargaining to use the space. When it wasn’t
rented Allen and the staff prepared meals for the other cabin
guests. The food was plentiful, filling and cheap, while the
atmosphere was always social. What Allen and his family had in
their cabin business and the lake the Three Families shared was
just short of magical to Maxwell. It was a wonderful place to grow
up.

Max paid little attention to the space then,
except to acknowledge that it was spotless. He took the key out of
the second largest room’s door and went inside. It was furnished
with a broad, low dresser with a triple panel mirror, a queen-sized
bed with a wrought iron frame, and a door leading out to a balcony.
He took the key from the trunk at the end of the bed, opened it and
dropped his saddlebags inside. There was just enough room for his
new guitar behind it, so he put it on top and opened the case. It
was the kind of instrument he pictured himself earning with a hit
record. Their debut only seemed to resonate with audiences after
they saw Road Craft live. They needed the album after that, but the
album itself didn’t draw much attention unless the listener was
already a fan of darker music.

He another took a look at the glossy black
guitar, followed the trim with his eyes to the dark rosewood fret
board and shook his head. The dream of making the band work,
getting in front of large audiences as Black Sabbath and Cream had
done seemed to go hand in hand with a guitar of that class, one
didn’t seem to make sense without the other. He would still play
his new instrument, despite the strings he felt were attached to
it, and he would do so as if there were thousands in the audience.
He closed and latched the case then slipped it behind his
saddlebags in the trunk.

There were some improvised jean shorts that
would work for something to swim in, that is if she got him in the
water at all, in his saddlebags, and he immediately got to opening
and digging. After a moment he found them, and was half way out of
his clothes – the bottom half – when he heard Miranda coming up the
stairs. “This place is amazing, I love how the stairs are all split
logs. This main house was run down when I was a kid, I remember-“
He turned his backside towards the door, being between jeans and
shorts, and continued to change.