Alabama Moon (21 page)

“Yessir,” I nodded. “Ever since he went to live in the forest.”

“Maybe he knows.”

“I don't think he'd tell me anything. I whipped up on him pretty good.”

“You ain't gonna whip up on me, are you?”

“Nossir. I hope I'm done whippin' up on people.”

Mr. Mitchell spit and chuckled to himself. I heard the dogs barking up the road and turned to see Hal coming towards us with the bloodhounds jumping up at him. When Hal stood before us, Mr. Mitchell suddenly leaped up and put him in a playful headlock. Hal began punching him in the stomach. Mr. Mitchell looked at me and smiled. “It ain't nothin for me to find somebody to whip up on.”

“Crap, Daddy!” came Hal's muffled cry. “Your underarm smells like horse piss.”

Mr. Mitchell let him go. Hal stumbled backwards, wiped at his face with his shirt, and spit at the ground. Then he looked up at me and laughed. “Kick his butt, Moon.”

“You boys go have some fun,” Mr. Mitchell said. “I'm gonna get me a six-pack and sit up in that loader until I got buzzards roostin' on me.”

“It won't work,” I said.

“Well, we'll see.”

“We're gonna get a chainsaw and go cut on some of those big trees that fell in a storm,” Hal said. “Moon ain't never used a chainsaw.”

By noon we'd stacked up a giant pile of tree parts. Hal sat in the branches of a large top and chewed tobacco while I busied myself inspecting an abandoned squirrel nest.

Hal spit and asked me, “Anything in there?”

“No. Baby squirrels make good pets, though.”

“I got enough pets already.”

I walked up the trunk to where Hal was and sat across from him. He held out a bag of Red Man chewing tobacco. “You want some?”

“Why would I want some of that?”

“'Cause it's good, dumbass.”

I shook my head.

“Fine, then,” he said. “Daddy left it in the truck.”

“Your daddy lets you live just about any way you want, doesn't he?”

Hal shut his eyes and worked the tobacco in his cheek. “Just about.”

“Hal?”

“What?”

“Why you think my pap made me live like he did?”

“I don't know.”

“Your daddy said he can't figure it out, either.”

“Maybe some people were after him?”

“He always thought the government was after him.”

“Well, there you go.”

“Why were they after him, though?”

“Hell, Moon, I don't know. You ain't out there no more, so no sense in worryin' about it.”

I could tell Hal didn't have any answers for me, so I lay back and we both napped under the pine needles.

That night I got a pencil and paper from Hal and wrote Pap a letter on the kitchen counter.

Dear Pap,

I know it's been a long time since I've written anything more than a couple of words to you. If you can see me, then you know where all I've been. You know I haven't had anything but pine bark to write on and that doesn't make for an easy letter. Sometimes I wonder if you really get these words in the smoke. Seeing as how I don't ever hear from you, I've made decisions that I don't know if you'll like. I decided not to go to Alaska at all if I've got to be alone. I don't think I can live like you wanted me to live. I think I'd be too lonely. Why did we have to live out there like we did, Pap? Why couldn't I have any friends? I'm going to talk to Mr. Abroscotto again. I don't know what to do. I'm not mad at you, Pap.

Love, Moon

“You got some matches, Hal?”

“You can burn it on the stove.”

“All right.”

 

A couple of days later, Hal and I took the truck to get my things at the old shelter. Mr. Mitchell told us to drive into Union and head south to get to Gainesville. We'd pass through town and then I'd start recognizing things.

“Your daddy doesn't mind you takin' his truck out of here by yourself?”

“I'm goin' to Hellenweiler just as fast I get caught drivin' as walkin'.”

“You're not gonna get caught.”

“That's what you always say . . . and you been caught at least once.”

“They can't keep me, though.”

Hal laughed. “We got laundry to do, too.”

“Where are we gonna do that?”

“Laundromat.”

“I've never been to a Laundromat.”

“You ain't never been lots of places.”

“That's the place you told me they have a phone?”

“Yeah. And they got good-lookin' girls.”

“I don't care about girls. I wanna use that phone.”

“We're gonna call him. He hasn't been there that long.”

“But they said he was okay, right?”

“Yeah, I told you that already. He's okay.”

“Good.”

I could tell we were getting close to where I used to live by the smell of the forest and the types of trees I was seeing. “We're almost there,” I said.

“You recognize all this?”

“Yeah.”

It wasn't long before we came to the bridge over the Noxubee River. “Stop right here,” I said.

Hal pulled over and stared at me. I got out and scooted on my rear down the hill to the swamp. When I got to the bottom, I heard Hal yell at me from above.

“What you want an old wheelbarrow for?” Hal asked.

“It's mine. Sanders threw it down here.”

“That the one you been talkin' about?”

“Yeah. The one I hauled my pap around in.”

“Jesus. You need some help?”

“No, I've got it. It's just jabbed down in this mud pretty good.”

I finally managed to get the wheelbarrow out of the mud and drag it back up to the truck. Hal helped me put it in the bed and then we set out again.

A few miles down the road I told him to pull over once more. “This is it,” I said. “You wait here and I'll be back in a little while.”

“There ain't nothin' here.”

“I've got trails out there that I can take to the shelter.”

“All right. How long's a little while to you?”

I shrugged my shoulders.

“That's what I figured. How about I go to the Laundromat and come back?”

“All right,” I said. “You can find me later.” I bent over
and picked up a stick. I stabbed it in the ground. “Right here.”

My feet fell quickly on the old footpaths like I'd just left the day before. I pictured what lay before me all the way to the shelter—every crook in the path, low branch, rise and fall, gurgling creek. The patterns and sounds of the patch of forest where I had lived for so long came back to me. I had run the trails so many times that I knew how firm the ground was before every step. I knew enough about what lived in the bushes and trees around me to tell the time of day by their movement and sounds.

After an hour and a half I was close to the shelter, yet I got the feeling that something was wrong. Somehow things were different, but I didn't know how. I slowed to a trot, and finally I took off my shoes and walked on the outsides of my feet. I approached the clearing and suddenly I knew that it was the forest noises that weren't right. A disturbance had passed through and left silence behind it.

Scattered about the clearing were our tools and the few items of furniture Pap and I had in the shelter. The curing barrel was knocked over. Parts of the roof were pulled away.

I walked slowly into the shelter and found it unusually bright inside from sunlight that beamed through the holes in the roof. The hide pile was thrown about the room and a jar of nails lay shattered and spilled where the cupboard had been. Pap's books were in a soggy pile on the floor.

I wasn't sure what I was feeling. I wasn't mad. I wasn't unhappy. I was confused.

Remembering what I had come for, I felt around in the
ceiling supports and my hand touched Pap's rifle. I pulled it from its hiding place and looked it over. It was in good shape except for a little rust on the barrel. I found our tube of grease on the floor and squeezed some onto a rag. I gave the rifle a rubdown and then stepped back out of the shelter.

“Wasn't anything I could have done about this, Pap,” I said out loud. “I guess I'm not supposed to be here anyway. Supposed to be in Alaska by now.”

All I wanted was the rifle. I turned my back to the shelter and stepped into the forest once more. This time, I took a path down through a cane thicket and across a stream where I used to run traps. I crossed a rusted barbed-wire fence that Pap once said looked to be a hundred years old by the way it was grown into the sides of the trees. I moved quickly through the hills and valleys and across Mr. Wellington's dirt road and back into the forest. After a while, I heard cars on the blacktop. I came out of the trees and continued the half mile to Mr. Abroscotto's store. I saw him through the window that looked over the gas pumps. His back was to me, and I knew that he was watching the television above the tobacco shelf.

He didn't turn when I walked in and the little bell jingled on the door. I stood there watching him and feeling nervous about how he would act. My hands were tired of holding the rifle, so I set the butt of it on the floor and held it at the end of the barrel. “Hey,” I said.

He turned and glanced at me briefly, then looked at me again and stood up. “Moon?”

I nodded at him.

“That you?”

“Yessir.”

He leaned over the counter and stared at me like he couldn't see very well. “Hardly recognized you without your hair.”

I rubbed my head and nodded. Mr. Abroscotto looked like he didn't know what to do. “Why don't you put up that gun,” he said.

“You might take it from me.”

“Why are you standin' there and holdin' it like that?”

“ 'Cause I was carryin' it.”

“Have you got it loaded?”

“It's always loaded.”

“I'm not comfortable with you standin' there with a loaded rifle in my store.”

“You think I'm gonna shoot you?”

“No . . . You're not, are you?”

“I've never shot anybody. I wouldn't shoot you, Mr. Abroscotto.”

He walked around the counter and came to stand before me. He was still watching me in a way that made me nervous. “Set it over there by the door, anyway.”

I glanced behind me, careful to keep him in sight, and saw a place near the door where I could lean the rifle and still be able to grab it quickly if I had to run out. I leaned it against the wall and faced Mr. Abroscotto again.

“I wanted to ask about my pap.”

“You know how many people are lookin' for you?”

“I know Sanders is after me.”

Mr. Abroscotto nodded. “He's in here at least twice a week askin' if I've seen you.”

“I think he tore up our old shelter. I just came from there.”

“I'd hate to think what he's gonna do when he gets his hands on you. You shouldn't mess with people like him.”

“Maybe he won't catch me.”

“After everything he says you did to him, he's gonna give it all he's got. You know, you could get me in trouble bein' here. I don't need any of his kind of trouble.”

“That's why I'm standin' by this door. You tried to turn me in once already.”

Mr. Abroscotto shook his head and stepped behind the counter. “So you wanna know about your father, do you?”

“That's right. Why'd he bring me out here?”

He turned and looked at me and leaned against the tobacco shelf. “Okay. Why don't you sit down and I'll tell you what I know.”

I slipped down the wall to the floor.

“Moon, I didn't meet your father until you were about two years old. He'd just moved out into this forest, and he had you and your mother, Caroline, with him. They carried you around in a burlap sack with a piece of hemp rope—some kind of papoose setup. Neither one of 'em talked much. They'd tell me what they wanted, trade a few things, and be gone.”

“With me in the sack?”

“That's right. Nobody knew where y'all went out in that forest. You'd think that after knowin' your father all those years, I'd have some idea where it was you lived. But he was careful to cover his tracks, and I don't make a habit of gettin' in another man's business.”

Mr. Abroscotto reached down and took a sip of cola that
was on the counter. “Anyhow, your father and I talked once after your mother died. He came in here with you late one afternoon as I was closin' and sat down on the floor just like you're doin' now. He told me that she was dead, that he'd buried her in the woods. I asked him if there was anything I could do, and he just shook his head. He was quiet for a long time. You never could tell what he wanted. That was the only time I thought maybe he was gonna tell me somethin' about himself. Finally, he asked me if I'd ever been in a war and I said no. He said once you've been in a war, you don't need much to live. I took that to mean he'd gone to Vietnam, and somethin' that happened to him over there made him want to live like he did.”

“What happened in Vietnam?”

“What happens in most wars—people get killed. However, a lot of people didn't think we should have been over there.”

“They made Pap go, and he didn't want to?”

“Somethin' like that.”

“Is Sanders mad at Pap about Vietnam?”

“No . . . I don't think—”

“Why won't he leave me alone?”

“You're startin' to learn that life's not as simple as you thought it was, Moon. There's mean people out there. Sanders just has a bad streak in him.”

“I told him a bunch of times I wasn't scared of him, and he's still after me.”

“I know you're not scared of him. You're not scared of anything. You're screwed up, Moon. You're all messed up.
You have no sense of reality. You've got to get some help.”