The Midnight Curfew

THE MIDNIGHT CURFEW

KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!

Yvette started awake and looked at her watch. It was 11:59 p.m. She snorted and shook her head. Jax was supposed to be home before midnight. It was just like him to push the envelope. She walked to the door, wondering why he wasn’t using his key.

She unlocked the door and started to open it. “Cutting it a bit close, aren’t you, Buddy—“

But she stopped mid-sentence. It wasn’t Jackson at the door. It was two police officers. Yvette looked from one grim-faced officer to the other, turned around and shut the door without a word. With her back against the door, she slid to the floor.

”No, no, no, no, no, no, no,” she said aloud into the empty house.

******

“Come on, Mom!”

”Dont ‘come on, Mom’ me. We have a deal. You said that you would do the dishes after dinner. I cook, you clean up after. Now you want to go out with your friends without cleaning up, leaving it all for me. Is that fair?”

Jax rolled his eyes so hard that Yvette was sure they were going to roll right out of their sockets and fall to the ground. “Moo-oom!”

Yvette folded her arms across her chest and stared hard at her son, saying nothing.

Jax didn’t look at her. He hated the stink eye. By just shooting him that look he knew he would confess to stuff he hadn’t even done. That was his mom’s superpower—the stink eye.

“Well?” demanded Yvette.

Jackson knew he was trapped. There was no way he was leaving the house without some sort of compromise. His mom was a lawyer, so he knew that the odds were against him getting out of doing the dishes and cleaning up. Plus she had the car keys, so there was that.

”Fine!” he said. “I’ll cook dinner tomorrow night AND do the dishes. Spaghetti and sauce. Happy?”

Yvette stared at him, calculating the offer. “Add in lunch tomorrow, including the dishes, and you have a deal.”

It was hard when your mom was a litigator. “Fine, but you do the shopping.”

”Deal.”

They shook on it.

Her eyes turned softer, less confrontational. “So, at this party tonight—are Leo’s parents going to be home?”

Jax knew he could lie, but what would the point be? She’d find out. She always found out. “No, probably not ‘til late. They’re at some business thing. Mrs. Boyle just made VP or something, so there’s this big to-do in the city.” He looked at his mom who was looking at him. “But they said Leo could have a few friends over.” She was still looking at him, giving him the mini stink eye. “There’s only going to be, like, eight people, maybe. You can call them if you want.”

Yvette did want to call them. Leo’s parents, Jennifer and Lyle, had a more liasse-faire attitude to child rearing than she herself had. Leo was the youngest of four, with two sisters and a brother, so it was a busy house. Here at home it was only her and Jax, and she knew she tended to hover. He had complained and called her a helicopter parent. And a tiger mom. She’d been called worse. But she also realized that she had to trust Jax’s judgement at some point in time—he was seventeen, on the cusp of adulthood, ready to launch. She sighed.

”If you have anything to drink, use my Uber account. Do not, under any circumstance, drive the car. Or get in a car with someone who has been drinking.”

Jax nodded his head. “Got it.”

”And please ….” She let her voice trail off. Visions of all the parties she’d attended in high school and university appeared, unbidden in her brain, making her shudder.

He rolled his eyes again. “No drinking, no drugs, no fights, no jerk behaviour. Got it. And if things go sideways, I’ll leave and come home. Promise.” He leaned over and kissed her cheek.

Yvette held the car keys tightly in her hand for a moment, hoping she was making the right decision. Then she took a deep breath and held them out for her son.

He grabbed them, and headed out the door. “Thanks Mom, you’re the best!”

She smiled at his words. But, she wondered, was she the smartest?

****

There was another knock, gentler this time.

”Ms. Bouchard, please open the door.”

Yvette was squatting on the floor, her hands over her head, mind reeling.

There was only one reason the police would come to her door at midnight. Bad news. It was always bad news. Worse-case-scenario bad news—death, injury. Or arrest.

God, what had happened? Where was Jax? Was he dead? Was he injured? Were the cops looking for him so they could arrest him? So many questions, and no answers. Her heart hammered in her chest and tears threatened to flow.

Where was Jax?

More knocking, someone calling her name. Yvette ignored it.

******

The party was in full swing when Jax got there. He looked around surprised at the groups of people hanging out on the lawn, beer bottles and red Solo cups in hand. Way more people than the small group he was expecting.

Leo had said that there were only going to be eight people, maybe ten at most, but the number of cars parked on both sides of the street and the crowd gathered on the lawn made Jax wonder how many people were actually at the party.

Who were these people? And where was Leo?

He walked up to the wide-open front door and went in, looking left and right for Leo. There were so many people—on the stairs, spilling out of the living room, jammed into the kitchen. There was a full-sized keg on the counter in the kitchen! Pizza boxes and red Solo cups littered every surface. And people were smoking inside! Mrs. Del Gado was going to freeeeak out!

Every one had a drink or bottle in their hand. People were leaning in, trying to talk over the super-loud music. Jax could feel the beat thumping in his chest.

He started to weave his way through the hoards of people, looking for anyone he might know. Finally, after he made his way out to the back deck, he found Leo standing at the back of the yard with three of their friends.

”Cool party,” said Jax, staring open-mouthed at the crowds.

Leo grinned half-heartedly. “Yeah, they’re all Mark’s friends from school. I don’t know anyone.”

Mark was Leo’s older brother who was in his second year of university. If you listened to Leo, Mark was majoring in partying. And to Jax it looked like he brought the party home.

“Your parents are going to freak,” said Jax still scanning the mass of people in the backyard.

Leo looked a little worried as he too took in the mayhem surrounding him. “No shit!”

Sylvia, Leo’s sometimes girlfriend, was looking around at all the people in the backyard. “I’m glad this isn’t my house. I’d be grounded for the rest of my life if my parents came home and found this.”

Leo nodded. “Don’t remind me,” he said.

Leo’s family was pretty well off, and the backyard had been tricked-out as a party spot—covered seating, heated pool, hot tub, outdoor kitchen, fire pit. Everything you could want. And people were taking advantage of the amenities. People were in the hot tub—naked. And people were in the pool—naked. Jax tried not to stare, but, you know, boobies.

Leo elbowed him and nodded towards the group sitting around the firepit. There were four people (two wearing only towels} doing lines of white powder. Probably coke, thought Jax. He didn’t do drugs, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t know what they were when he saw them.

Anna, another friend, turned to Leo. “What if your parents come home early?”

Leo looks horrified. ”My parents are going to go ballistic. This is next level.” He looked a little more uneasy as he watched two people jump on the trampoline, naked.

Kip, another friend, said. “I’d have to leave the country if my parents came home to this.”

Leo looked miserable. “I told Mark it was too many people. He just told me to relax, but this is too much. I do not want to be here when my parents get home.”

The group just nodded, each visualizing the holy hell that would rain down on each of them if this were their home.

”Cannonball!”

Jax turned just in time to see some guy jump off the roof of the sunroom, naked, into the pool. The ensuing tsunami drenched everyone within a six foot radius of the pool, including Jax and his friends.

Then the sound of breaking glass caused the five of them to turn back towards the house. There was shouting and the sound of furniture being scraped across the floor. Two guys came tumbling through the door, screaming at each other. Curses flew, shoving started. Mark came sauntering out of the house, beer in hand.

”Dudes! No fighting. If you’ve got a beef, then take it somewhere else.”

“Fuck you!” said the big guy, reaching behind his back, and pulling a out gun.

*****

KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK! This time, a little more insistent.

”Please, Mrs. Bouchard, open the door. We need to speak with you.”

Yvette shut her eyes. “No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.”

”Mom? What’s going on?”

Yvette’s eyes flew open. “Jackson” she screamed, leaping to her feet. And running towards him. “Oh my God! Jackson!” she wailed, throwing her arms around him, tears flowing.

“Mom, why are you crying?”

“I thought you were dead or injured. Where have you been!”

Jax looked confused. “We left the party early, got here around ten. You were sleeping in the chair and we didn’t want to bother you, so we went to the basement to play video games. ”

The knocking turned to hammering.

”POLICE! Open the door! NOW!”

”Mom?”

She untangled herself from her son, turning towards the front door. When she opened it, both officers were alert, tense, their hands on their weapons.

”What’s going on?” asked the older of the two, Officer Hendrix according to his name tag. “We heard yelling.”

Both officers stepped over the threshold, walked in scanning the house. The second officer, Chee, walked off through the house. Officer Hendrix turned back to Yvette. “What’s going on?” he asked.

Yvette looked from Hendrix to Jax. “I thought you were here to … to notify me that something horrible had happened to Jax.” She shut her eyes and continued. “I … I couldn’t bear it. I figured that if you didn’t tell me the bad news, then it wasn’t real.”

Jackson moved towards his mom and put his arm around her shoulders, hugging her gently.

Chee entered the room followed by Leo.

“Leo!” said Yvette, looking from him to Jax. “I thought there was a party at your house.”

Leo shrugged. “There was, but it was way out of hand. My brother Mark invited bunch of his friends from school, then it was posted online, and like a million people showed up. Mark didn’t even know half of them.”

Yvette looked at Jackson.

”The party was so … so not the party we expected,” he said, shaking his head, remembering. “I invited Leo to crash here.”

Officer Hendrix looked at Leo. “Your brother Mark didn’t know where you were. He was worried. He told us that the last time he saw you was with Jackson, here. Just before the incident with the gun.”

”Gun?” Yvette whispered, looked shocked.

”Yes ma’am,” said Chee. “One of the party goers brandished a weapon. Mark escorted the individual off the property, but he came back later, with some friends, and shot up the front of the house. There were no injuries.”

Yvette’s eyes bugged out of her head snapped sideways to stare at her son. “Gun?” she whispered.

Jackson put up his hands as if to calm a wild animal. “Mom, we left as soon as the guy pulled out the gun. Even before the gun, the party was way out of control.”

“I didn’t even tell Mark we were going.” Leo looked at the police officers. He tried to look sheepish. “I probably should have told him, I guess.”

After the police left, Yvette sat the boys down. Looking from one to the other. “I want to tell you how proud I am—of both of you and your friends. You did the right thing—you left when things got out of hand.” She smiled.

”You should have seen it, Mom,” said Jackson. “There had to be like two hundred people there! A lot of them were naked. And this guy jumped off the roof …”

Yvette listened to Jax and Leo recount the night, nodding, not commenting, letting them tell their story. Inwardly she thanked whatever entity that had protected Jackson from making the same mistakes that she had made when she was his age.