Man in the Blue Moon (19 page)

As dusk settled over the Millville timber yard where the remaining cypress would be sorted by government men and shipped to a Texas shipyard, Ella stood on the deck of the last steamboat heading toward Apalachicola. She stepped over the low-hanging rusted chain with the crooked-lettered sign reading
No Passengers Allowed
. She was tired of following the rules and exhausted from pretending that all was not as bad as it seemed. She moved to the edge of the boat, where faded life jackets were stacked haphazardly. Leaning over the railing, she looked out at the riverbank that once seemed jeweled with Spanish moss hanging from tree limbs. The landscape she had once painted with her aunt now seemed like snarled wood dipping out over the water like fingernails discolored with gray fungus.

Massaging the check she had safety-pinned to the inside of her pants, she wondered what sort of God would tease her and then fling her pleas away. “The worst is over with for now,” Narsissa had assured her when they boarded the boat that would take them home. If it hadn’t been for Keaton, who was standing by the boat steward and watching her board behind Narsissa, she might have rolled her eyes and cursed futile optimism. Instead, Ella simply nodded and accepted the hand of the steward who assisted the female passengers on board. It was only after she boarded that she wondered if the man had felt the callused and wounded places on her palm.

Now, standing away from the others on the top level of the boat where coal-colored smoke danced from the stack pipes, Ella was too numb with exhaustion to continue her act. She listened to the darkness that whispered that her financial struggles would never be over. Feeling the vibration of the engine on the wooden railing that protected passengers from falling into the water, she wondered what was the next catastrophe that awaited her on this journey of life that was so foreign from the one mapped out for her by her aunt. She pictured the check becoming undone from the pin and inching up the waist of her pants. It would take flight in the humid breeze and skip across the churning water below. The check would disintegrate into pieces, falling down to the river bottom, covering the lost cypress like flakes of snow.

Leaning over the rail, she let her head drop and dangled there with her hair swaying from side to side like black silk on the dress hem of a dancing woman. Watching the water churn below and feeling the boat railing that supported her weight press into her abdomen, Ella wondered if she could stay here all night. There was security in being hidden from the others, slumped over toward the dark water while feeling the blood rush to the top of her head, proving to her that she was still alive, still vital.

“Are you all right?”

Ella flinched at the sound of Lanier’s voice. Rising upright, she felt Lanier’s hands around her waist, helping her back into place. She twisted away from him and folded her arms. “I’m fine. . . . I was just . . . I was just looking down at the water.”

“Well, I wondered where you’d slipped off to.”

When she turned away from him, she kicked over the life jackets that were stacked next to the railing. They fanned out across the boat deck like a boundary between Ella and Lanier.

“Didn’t mean to scare you,” he said. The dirt and stubble on his face made his eyes seem greener.

“You didn’t. . . . I just wanted some time by myself to think.”

“Everything okay?”

Ella stared at him and then glanced back at the woods that lined the riverbank.

“What I meant was—”

“Fine. Everything is fine.”

The sound of an out-of-tune piano being played in the dining hall rose up from the floor below. Ella kicked at the life jacket that had fallen next to her boot. The inside of the life jacket got tangled on the tip of her boot and when she kicked harder she slipped backward, landing against the rail.

Lanier reached out, gripping her arm.

The water churned and the whistle sounded as the boat turned a bend in the river. Ella snatched her arm away from him and raised her head up to the first star of the night. She felt as jumbled together as the weathered life preservers that littered the boat deck. Fighting against her emotions, she tried to brush away the tears with the back of her callused hands. The piano played on, and Lanier moved closer. “Don’t,” she said.

“I was just . . .”

“Don’t. Don’t come over here and comfort this poor
little lady
.”

“I wasn’t,” he said and moved to the side, stepping on top of one of the life jackets. “I just know something about what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, you know something about living hand to mouth? Is that it? I guess we are kindred spirits, you and me. Two vagabonds wondering where our next nickel will come from. Well, no thank you. I don’t want your way of living.”

“Now, you’re just exhausted. You’re upset . . . you’re . . .”

Ella balled her fists and shook them up toward the star. When she looked at Lanier there was wildness in her eye that had yet to be broken. “I said do not patronize me. Do you even
know
what that means?”

He shook his head, wiped the corner of his mouth with his thumb, and then turned to leave. “Now who’s the one patronizing?” When he got to the chain with the sign prohibiting access, he walked back to her.

She could smell the musky odor that she long thought she’d grown immune to. His top lip was blistered by the sun. He stood so close to her that she felt the fury of his words.

“Has anybody ever told you that you have a mighty high opinion of yourself? With your education and your past that you pet on like some lapdog. Puffed-up memories of some old-maid aunt. Let me guess, she brainwashed you into thinking that you have royal blood from England or Scotland or someplace too.”

“I’m sorry?” Ella scowled.

“Not as sorry as you try to make out to be. I just can’t figure out how somebody so smart can be so pitiful.”

“Pitiful?” Ella stepped forward and then looked up when the steam whistle blew.

“Mighty pitiful,” he said as spit landed on Ella’s shirtsleeve. “All right, you lost half the wood. You ought to be happy you didn’t lose the whole lot. You still got money for the other half. Ella, you’re straddling somewhere between petted and pitiful.”

“I am not putting up with this,” Ella said. “Just as soon as we hit land, I’m paying your passage on the next boat out of here.”

“You don’t have the money to buy yourself passage, let alone anybody else. Man alive. I knew better than to stay.”

“You stayed because I let you stay.” Ella folded her arms and moved back until the screws pressed against her spine.

“No, ma’am. I stayed because you needed me to stay.”

“You stayed because you needed refuge.”

“Spoiled and prideful, too, I see.”

The waters churned below, and the boat tilted slightly before making the curve of the river. Ella stared at him, and when the steam whistle overhead blew, she did too. She balled her fists in the air and screamed until the veins in her neck protruded like fingers. “Leave!”

“I’ve listened to you boss me just about long enough,” Lanier said, leaning against the box where the life preservers had been stacked.

“I said leave.”

“No.” He folded his arms and cocked his head to the side. “I’ve decided to stay put.”

Ella pulled at the sides of her dungarees the same as if she’d been wearing a ball dress. “This is not appropriate. You need to get back downstairs right this minute. People will talk. They will say . . .”

“Let ’em!” Lanier laughed and then grunted. “If I had a plug nickel for every time I heard
they
 . . . They don’t mean nothing to me. And if you ever plan to live your life—I mean really live it, not for nobody but yourself—you won’t care what
they
say.”

“Well, I can’t just up and run like some people. I have responsibilities. I have children. What is said about me impacts my sons, and that matters to me.”

Lanier blocked Ella from walking away. A streak of moonlight illuminated part of his angular face, making him appear to be wearing a mask in the darkness. “When are you going to quit hiding behind your boys?”

“Oh, I don’t think I’d bring up the subject of
hiding
if I were you.”

“Let me ask you something, and then you won’t have to worry with me no more. What has caring about those people got you? Forgive me for speaking plain, but the only ones I saw show up and help you was a drunk, Bonaparte, and some of his neighbors.”

“I’ll have you know that I am respected in Dead Lakes.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“And what makes you think you know what I need? What I need is for you to leave me alone.”

A woman’s playful scream rose up from the dance floor below, and laughter followed.

“I don’t believe you.” A cloud shifted across the moon, and as it did, the light strayed away from Lanier’s face.

Ella looked at him as though a mask had just been removed. “Just who do you think you are?”

“I know more about you than you think I do.” Lanier’s eyes narrowed in a way that was anything but playful. “I see somebody who’s scared and running from a past that won’t let her go. I see somebody who’s lived her life trying to please people that ain’t worth pleasing.”

Ella looked around at the life preservers that scattered at her feet and caused her to feel blocked in. The dam of fear unlocked from her mind and flooded her system, causing her to tremble. Stuffing her hands deep into the pants pockets, she cocked her head to the side, hoping to bluff away her unease.

“Whether you like it or not, you know I’m speaking the truth.” Lanier’s breathing became haggard. He moved closer, and when Ella looked away, he placed his hand on the back of her head, forcing her to face him. “You know how come I can tell you all this? Because when I look at you, I see the person I used to be.”

Ella could make out the chatter from the people below. Their words intertwined with the piano music and made her feel light-headed. Lanier’s grip tightened on her skull, cupping her, scaring her. The memory of the low-seated fainting sofa with its cherry-printed material that her aunt kept close to the front door for times of bad news floated across her mind. Pushing away from Lanier, she thought of calling out for Samuel. “Do not ever put your hands on me again,” she yelled. Jabbing an elbow into Lanier’s side, she broke free and stumbled, landing on top of a wooden box stamped with the boat’s name,
John W. Callahan
.

“I’m not the enemy,” he said. “No matter what
they
say.”

He stood over her with his back to the moon that was now unencumbered by the veil of clouds. A breeze drifted in off the river, and strands of Lanier’s hair tangled around his jagged ear. Moonlight anointed the back of his head.
“Angels and demons are often dressed in the same cloth,”
her aunt called out in her mind. But there was a pleading in Lanier’s eyes that settled her, hypnotized her into believing his words.

When Lanier reached his hand down to help her, she ignored the offer and instead gripped the side of the rail. Upright, she looked him in the eyes and tried to form her conflicting thoughts into words. There was no sensible explanation for the current of fear and attraction that caused her mind to race and her heart to hold on to faith in him. Everything in her told her to let go.

Lanier brushed his hands against his pants and stepped to the side, letting Ella return to her place by the rail. “When we get to Apalachicola, I’ll get me a ticket to New Orleans, and we’ll be done with it.”

Ella folded her arms and looked down at the scattered life jackets. “Fine. That’s just fine. Quit.”

“From the best I can tell, you already quit for the both of us.”

His words caused her to step backward, once again feeling the sharp bolted places on the rail. Even before Harlan, her greatest fear was winding up a broken woman like her aunt, a woman who’d prefer to dream life away rather than walk through the pains of the present.

When Lanier got to the spot where the chain separated the deck from the stairs that led to the public area below, Ella moved forward, fueled by anger if nothing more. Feeling drunk from exhaustion and the floating music of the piano, she pulled Lanier toward her and kissed him. She dug her fingers into the side of his head, pressing her nails into his scalp until she was sure she had drawn blood. She kissed him with the same intensity with which she wanted to slap him.

A large white tent, fit for a circus, sat in the center of Lafayette Park in Apalachicola. With the bay waters glistening in the background behind him, Brother Mabry walked back and forth across a makeshift stage. One of his thumbs was tucked under the lapel of his crimson jacket. Sweat ran from his head and discolored his baby-blue shirt, but he never seemed to notice. He balled up his fist the same way he had seen President Teddy Roosevelt do when making his points in the newsreels. “Hear me now. Evil is wise. As wise as the serpent. The days we live in are evil, people.”

The tent was filled to bursting. Those able to fit inside sat on wooden benches with shoulders pressing one against another. Children stood balanced on the rails of the park gazebo, peering at the man who was as big as a walrus.

Moths fluttered around the tent lanterns. A flickering glow danced across the faces of the audience. A pale woman wearing an upturned, faded brown hat clutched her three-month-old baby closer. Two older women sat next to her on the bench. They looked at her and then fanned their faces faster with the cardboard fans that Collins Funeral Home had given away at the tent entrance.

And then Brother Mabry’s voice fell to a whisper. The echo of his last words could still be heard when he walked to the edge of the stage and bent over, his low-hanging stomach rolling down to his knees. “And what else does the Word say about these horrific days? Horrid days, people. Hear me now.”

An old man wearing a wilted magnolia blossom in the lapel of his overalls cupped his hand to his ear. The woman holding the baby jostled him in her arms and swung her leg with nervous energy. Brother Mabry reared back and roared.

“There will be false prophets. Impostors, I say. Charlatans appearing on the scene, fooling the people with so-called miracles. People, hear me now. I’m not telling you a nursery rhyme.” Brother Mabry stomped to an oak podium and held up a Bible bigger than most of the family Bibles the audience had in their homes. “Go read the words for yourselves. False prophets will populate this land. They will claim to heal. Hear me now, some will claim to heal like sweet Jesus Himself.” With his other hand, Brother Mabry grabbed the local newspaper that would be released the next day. He held it as high as the Bible.