The Beat Keepers - Chapter 1

                                           

  Chapter 1

Tap spied Bansuri among a cluster of teenagers crossing the bridge over Turtle Pond and ran to catch up. Feeling playfull, he touched her on the right shoulder and then ducked to the left so that when she twisted around she saw no one.
      Confusion flickered across her face followed by annoyed familiarity when she turned to the left and saw Tap, grinning from ear to ear.
        “Why do you always do that to me?” Bansuri shook her flute, trying to look angry.
        Not the least bit intimidated, Tap shook his drumsticks back at her and said, “Because you always fall for it.”
        With a toss of her brown hair, she disagreed. “No I don’t. I just had my mind on something else and you surprised me.”
        "Yeah?” Tap's eyebrows arched. “What’d you have your mind on?” 
        “A freckle-faced boy," she sighed. “One we both know.” Bansuri shot a quick, sideways glance at Tap and took off again.
        Tap stayed at her side, matching her stride for stride. “One we both know, huh? Would you say he’s cute?”
        “I might, but then I think the snapping turtles from Turtle Pond are cute, too. Actually, I’d be more inclined to say he's obnoxious.” Bansuri sped up as if to leave Tap behind.
        “Hey, listen.” Tap reached out, lightly taking hold of her arm.
        “Whaaat?” She turned and glared, her posture as demanding as her tone.
        “I’ve been doing some thinking," Tap declared.
        “That’s an anomaly,” Bansuri giggled and started to walk away again.
        “That’s a what?” Tap asked, reaching out and grabbing her arm to prevent her from leaving.
        “An anomaly," Bansuri pulled away. "Don’t you know what an anomaly is?” Waiting for Tap's reply, she crossed her arms in front of her chest. The look on her face said, I bet this is going to be good. 
        “Uh, don’t tell me, I know this one.” Tap scratched his head with the beaded tip of a drumstick. His brow wrinkling, eyes squeezed shut, he riffled through the pages in his mental dictionary until he found the answer. Triumphant, he raised his right hand, pointing one drumstick skyward. “Aha!" he opened his eyes. " It’s a single-celled life form. I studied them last year in biology, right? They live in a drop of water and reproduce without needing a mate.”
        Bansuri rolled her eyes and trudged away again, saying over her shoulder, “Lucky, aren’t they?”
        Unaware that his definition had been wrong, Tap stood for a moment wondering what she meant. “Hey, Ban, wait a minute. Wait a minute!” he called out and chased after her. “We need to talk.”
        “Tap, what is it?" Bansuri turned around and planted her hands on her hips. "I’m going to be late for my session.”
        After stealing a quick glance up and down the path to be sure nobody could hear them, Tap leaned towards Bansuri and whispered, “I want to see the gods. I want to go up on Sacred Mountain,” he pointed to a tall peak in the distance. “I'm going to ask them why Gong forces everyone to work so many hours. Will you go with me?”
        Bansuri's jaw dropped. Her eyes widened with shock. “Have you lost your mind, Tap?" She smacked her forehead with her palm. "You know, if you have, it wouldn’t surprise me, because something so small can get lost very easily.”
        “C’mon, Ban, we’ve talked about this before. You can’t pass this off as one, big sour note. I’ve heard my mom and dad talk about it, too. It isn’t fair that —”
        “Think about what you’re proposing, Tap. You’re not just a little flat here, you’re way off key. Your dad works for the High Priest. He could lose his job if Gong finds out you were in the forbidden zone, or on the sacred mountain. Please give that scenario a little thought before you go off on some hair-brained, adventure. I know you love a good adventure. You have, ever since I made the mistake of giving you that antique copy of Treasure Island for your tenth birthday."
        He had read the book so many times the pages were falling out.
        "This isn’t fiction, Tap," Bansuri reached out, placed a hand on her best friend's shoulder, and squeezed. "What you’re considering could result in serious you-know-what for your entire family.” The intensity of her gaze declared the depth of her concern. She released her grip on his shoulder and took off again.
        With his hands at his sides, drumsticks dangling, Tap watched Bansuri go. After zigzagging into the sky like an over-inflated balloon with no string tied around the bottom, his high hopes lay deflated on the ground. He had been so fired up about the possibility that his father, and everyone’s parents, might be able to spend more time at home if his quest ended as he envisioned.
        Imagining how upset his father would be if he were caught, his shoulders sagged. How many times, he asked himself, has Dad said, “Son, if I can get off this weekend, I’ll take you fishing.”
        Tap answered himself out loud, “Too many times, that’s how many.” Dejected, he kicked at a small stone, partially embedded in the dirt and watched as it tumbled away. Kicking the rock felt good. He headed for where it lay, intending to boot it again.
        Interrupting his therapy, Bansuri's next door neighbor, Larghetto, came plodding along. Toting his tuba, he huffed and puffed, doing his best to make it to class on time. Habitually late for everything, Larghetto could best be described as a little-past husky. His trademark, baggy overalls, further accented his obesity.
        Larghetto reached up and wiped a copious amount of sweat from his brow with the back of his wet, puffy forearm. With a flick of his arm he hurled the excess perspiration away and called out, “Hey, Tap. What’s up? Let’s get a move on, man,” he wheezed. “Can’t be late, ya know?”
        “Yeah, I know,” Tap replied. Everyone had heard a course conductor shout what would happen the next time Larghetto showed up late.
        Tap glanced down, spied the stone, and gave it a final kick. It wouldn't make any sense to get a tardy slip that his mom and dad would have to sign. “Let’s go,” he said.
        Pulling his drumsticks out of his back pocket, he began to flip and twirl them in both hands as he ambled along the beaten path with his chubby friend. Listening to the rapid return of Larghetto’s heavy breathing and seeing his round face begin to redden with the mild exertion, Tap smiled. “Better pick up the pace, Larghetto, a snail just passed us.”
        “Yeah, well,” Larghetto grunted as he lifted the tuba’s black carrying case up to eye level. “I feel like a snail, having to lug this thing around. Sometimes I wish I could just strap it to my back and wear it.”

~        ~        ~

      Tick, tick, tick.
      Lying in bed that night, Bansuri didn't feel threatened at first by the noise she heard.
      Tick, tick, tick.
      It might be a bird, she thought. Birds weren’t extinct, but were rare since the “cleansing virus” wiped most of them out. From time to time, they landed on her windowsill after spotting an insect, worm, or even a small lizard highlighted against the painted-white, wood background. After feasting upon or losing the prize they sought, they sometimes became enamored with their reflection in the glass.
        Tick, tick.
        If not a bird, perhaps tonight’s visitor might be a mouse seeking refuge from the cold. Freezing nighttime temperatures weren't uncommon in the valley of Rhythm and Harmony, even during the summer. Bansuri's father, Chant, often joked, "This isn't the North Pole, but you can feel it from here."
        Too sleepy to worry about a stupid bird, or whatever, Bansuri relaxed and scooted further down in her nest, beneath the heavy quilt and the thick flannel sheets. Both were major luxuries. A crop of cotton hadn't grown anywhere on the planet for several centuries.
        Thoughts that were clear, moments earlier, slowed to the pace of a tortoise and became as muddy as Turtle Pond, which she crossed over twice every day - on the way to her courses at the Institute in the morning and on the way home each afternoon.
        Whack!
        Bansuri sat up. Okay, that wasn't a bird! Her eyes blinked in alarm.  Perhaps an elk, a moose, or possibly a bear had wandered into the housing development reserved for government employees and their families.
        Facing the window, she pulled the bedcovers up to just below her eyes. With no light in her room and precious little coming from the thin sliver of moon, she squinted at the figure she glimpsed disappearing around the corner of the house. Why is this happening when the moon is in its first measure?       
        Breathing in nervous little sips of air, Bansuri recalled that last summer, shortly after her twelfth birthday, a young grizzly invaded one of the mining settlements about a half mile to the south. This could be the same bear, she thought. Maybe it saw itself in the glass.      
        She strained to hear the huffing and snorting sounds an agitated grizzly would make, but heard nothing beyond the creaking of the house, which seemed normal on a windy night. If this turned out to be a bear, depending on how it reacted to its own image, Bansuri considered that it might break the window. 
        Not wanting to awaken her mother without sufficient cause, Bansuri complained in silence. Dad's got the rifle. He should've been home from his meeting by now. Her heart fluttered as her imagination ran wild. What can Mom and I do if that thing turns out to be a grizzly and attacks us? Scare it away by playing a threatening tune on my flute? Kill it with a kitchen knife, or maybe some knitting needles? She visualized chasing a bear while shouting, "Knit one, Purl two!" The fantasy provoked a weak, nervous giggle.             
        Bansuri drew in a sharp breath as the nocturnal visitor came close enough to make out what appeared to be a dark, round, furry head with a short muzzle. She opened her mouth to shout, but something about the way the figure moved convinced her to stifle the urge. Wait a minute! Could that be someone dressed in a thick winter coat, wearing a hunting cap with ear flaps and a ski mask? Her best friend, Tap, owned a dark brown cap with ear flaps. He had come to her window late at night on more than one occasion.
        Instead of shouting for her mother, she exhaled, forced herself to let go of the sheets, and leaned forward. She cocked her head to the right and squinted.
        If she called for her mom and the supposed beast turned out to be Tap, he would find himself in a heap of trouble. Considering how many times they had ventured out late together, she didn’t want to blow the whistle on him.
        The big shape might be her harmless, next door neighbor, Larghetto. She had seen her chubby schoolmate behind the house, but never this close, and never this late at night.
      Rather than a grizzly, Ursus arctos, the subject of a report she gave last year at the Institute, Bansuri suspected the scientific designation for this animal would be Homo stupidus. After all, before classes that morning Tap had asked her to accompany him on a quest to climb the Sacred Mountain and speak with the gods? Did he mean tonight?        
        She bristled, recalling his reply on the way home that afternoon when she tried to talk him out of his hair-brained idea. "Ban, you're smarter than me," he admitted. "But you're not very brave. Maybe that's because you're so young and, of course, you're a girl."
        Bansuri gritted her teeth and muttered, "I'm six months younger than you are, Tap, and yeah, I'm a girl."
        Outside, although blurred by the dirty, frosted windows, the image caught her eye again. Did it just wave?     
        With an annoyed grunt, she tossed her warm bed covers to the foot of the bed, threw her legs over the side, and slid her bare feet into her fur-lined house slippers.       
        From the drawer in her small, four-legged night table, she retrieved a little box of matches and lifted the hourglass-shaped chimney from the brass oil lamp. I can’t believe he’s actually planning on going through with this, she thought as she struck a match.
        The tip ignited with a warm, yellowish-orange spark, radiating sufficiently to allow a dim view of her bedroom's comforting surroundings. Glancing around, Bansuri's sense of well-being grew. The flame danced shyly up the length of the match, creeping closer to her slender fingers, when an air current swatted it and blew it out. Drowning in darkness once again, the buoyant feeling of safety floundered and sank into cold uncertainty.
        Reopening the matchbox, Bansuri started to shiver. Again, the match burst into flame. This time she applied it to the lamp's wick without hesitation. Placing the glass cover back on the lamp, she watched with satisfaction as the light flooded the room with its soft glow. With the return of light, her confidence resurfaced.
        Bansuri figured the light from her bedroom would act as a signal. Seeing the light, Tap would expect her to open the window and crawl out to join him.
        The frigid air in her room penetrated her nightgown and crawled up her bare legs, “I hope he’s freezing his butt off, because I sure am,” she grumbled. She kicked off her slippers and pulled on two pairs of socks.
        Muttering about how cold her feet still were, she shuddered as she tugged on a pair of jeans. When she pulled her nightgown over her head, she quickly donned her warmest sweater and wriggled into her gray, wool coat.       
        The wind-up alarm clock on her night table showed ten-fifteen as she unlatched the lock on her bedroom window.
        Standing in front of the window, the phrase, “central air and heat” flashed in her mind, a defunct term from her “Before the Asteroid” session that morning. How she would have loved the convenience and comfort of the device that the ancestors called a thermostat, which magically regulated the temperature.
        Naturally the course conductor presented central air and heat and it’s controlling device, the thermostat, as unnecessary evils, not in harmony with the wishes of the gods. Well, maybe, she mused, if we reach the gods and they're in an accommodating mood, I'll ask them to bring back that one thing.
      The stubborn window frame refused to budge with her first attempt, but relented with her second, more vigorous effort. It slid all the way to the top. While she would normally complain about anything below 65 degrees, the upper 40’s in her room suddenly seemed cozy compared to the tooth-chattering gust of air that rushed in. But as cold and as strong as it blew that evening, it wasn’t the icy mountain wind that suddenly pirated away the spirited thirteen year old’s voice and caused her green eyes to open wide in shock.
                                         

    ~        ~        ~

             
        Tap blinked as his mother shook him. “Wake up, Tap.” Her words conveyed an urgency that convinced him to rise up, rather than complain.
      “What is it Mom?” he asked, throwing back his covers as his father walked in holding an oil lamp.
      “Get dressed son, we have to hurry.”
      Tap asked again, this time with both parents looking at him as if something awful had happened. “What is it? What’s going on?”
        His mother bent down and ran her smooth hand along the contours of his cheek. “Bansuri and Larghetto have been hurt. Get dressed.
We have to go to the clinic.”
      Bewildered, Tap jumped up as his father left the room. The clock on his nightstand showed the time to be eleven. “Ban and Larghetto, hurt? She was still here three hours ago! How'd she get hurt?” Tap demanded. “And what were they —”
      “Just get dressed,” his mother urged. “Don’t forget your jacket and your cap. Another cold front is coming through. Your father's right. We need to hurry. We’ll tell you what we know on the way.”
      Cymbal left, leaving Tap feeling alone and insecure. Unanswered questions and well-founded fears tortured him, making it hard to think, or even to move. 
      He felt nervous about the way his parents acted. They were too upset, too rushed, and too quiet. He whipped his night shirt off, pulling it over his head and tossing it onto the bed in one clean motion and opened his armoire from which he grabbed a navy blue, long sleeved shirt. As he began to button up, he heard the family’s two horses voicing their objections to being rousted from their warm stalls and hitched up to the wagon at this time of night.
        Glancing through the wavy, but clean, glass of his bedroom window he could make out their shapes as they emerged from the nearby barn, snorting and stamping in disapproval of the cold bit in their mouths and at the intimidating sound of the buggy whip that Cadence crisply snapped just inches above their hind quarters.
      Tap barely finished tying his right shoe and sat on the bed, slipping his left foot into the other, when his mother stepped back into the room clutching her purse in one hand and a bag of her homemade potpourri in the other. “Mom,” Tap asked. “What’s the potpourri for?”
      Rather than answering, Cymbal replied with, “Son, your father has the buggy ready. We really need to go, now.”
      Outside, Cadence called for them, “Cymbal, Tap, hurry!”
      Without tying his left shoelace, Tap grabbed his thick winter coat from the back of the chair at his study desk and said, “Okay, I’m ready.” Slipping into the bulky jacket as he followed his mother, he reached into the right-side pocket and located his fur-lined gloves, right where he always stuffed them.
      They were at the front door when his mother turned and with a look of exasperation mixed with disappointment, pointed to his head, exclaiming, “Tap, your hat, I told you not to forget it!”
      “I’ll get it Mom,” he answered, racing back through the house at full speed with his untied shoelace flopping as he ran. Glad that his mother remembered the hat, he snatched it off the hook that protruded from the back of his bedroom door. The fur-lined ear flaps would feel good tonight. He would have needed them, for sure, if he had crossed the forbidden zone on his way to climb the sacred mountain.
        Did Ban get hurt waiting outside for me? Tap winced. I didn't say tonight, for sure.The thought made him feel sick to his stomach.
        He wondered what difference it might have made if he had gone. Would she have still been hurt? Would I have been involved and injured? Would Mom and Dad be on their way to see me, as well as Larghetto and Bansuri at the healing clinic?
      Nearing the front door again, he heard his father shout, “Cymbal, climb up!” Looking out, Tap saw her narrow foot balanced precariously on the protruding rounded hub of the wooden axle while Cadence leaned over and pulled her up by the hand. From the porch, Tap spied the butt of his father’s hunting rifle protruding from the mounted leather holster on the side of the wagon’s front seat. As soon as his mother settled in, Cadence turned and motioned for his son. “Tap," he called out. "Close the door and get up here, don’t worry about locking it!”
        Tap pulled the heavy wooden door closed. As the screen door smacked against the door jam, he sprang from the porch, ran to the wagon, and vaulted with fluid grace onto the back like a circus acrobat. As sure-footed as a mountain goat, he leapt from the rear of the moving carriage, onto the wooden bench behind his mother.
      Jostling their way up the path to the front gate, the bitter wind wasted no time biting Tap’s cheeks. The cold made him wish he had remembered the ski mask that covered his nose and face. Cadence pulled back on the reins to hold the horses while Tap opened the gate. Beyond the gate, he paused again while Tap closed and latched it behind the wagon and returned to his perch.
        This marked the first time Tap had been out so late with his parents. He felt as restless as the horses that snorted and pawed at the ground. The feeble light from the thin, crescent moon further magnified his anxiety. It seemed eerie and out of place at this hour to hear his father crack that buggy whip and cry out, “Geeyup!”


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