Man in the Blue Moon (6 page)

Harlan halfway turned, following the noise from the chandelier. Before he could turn completely around, the two-by-four landed against the side of his head. He fell backward against the china cabinet, causing the dishes to rattle and a decorative china bird that Ella’s aunt had given her to fall and crash to the floor. Pieces of china scattered around Harlan’s body, which lay in a ball on the floor. His eyes fluttered and skin unfolded on his forehead. A stream of blood darkened the floor and the pieces of white china.

That night after Harlan was sewn up, Ella put him to bed in a stack of hay inside the barn. She awoke the next morning expecting to find her husband mournful and ready to repent. Instead there was only the indentation of his body on crushed hay. Harlan had seemingly disappeared into the ground. At the breakfast table, none of the boys said a word about what they had witnessed the night before or if they expected their father to return. They left for school through the front door, leaving Ella sitting at the dining room table with shards of china strewn before her, working to glue the pieces of the bird back together.

Ella tried to walk away from the preoccupying memory, and without ever realizing it, she had ventured outside in her bare feet. The earth was cool with dew, almost soothing. She dug her toes into the soil. The dampness soothed her aching calves and tickled the length of her spine. She tried to let the moment envelop her, but the sweetness of the earth could not ease the sting of the fear that whipped at her mind. She wondered what would become of her if she lost the farm. Visions from easier days fluttered about, tempting her to give up and walk away. If only she could go back in time and lounge in her aunt’s parlor listening to proper ladies in her aunt’s reading group, the Philaco Club, debate the social perils of women’s suffrage. This time she would have opinions of her own.

The Philaco Club met monthly in the home of Ella’s aunt Katherine. The women sat in a semicircle in the parlor, where dried red rose petals and crystal rabbit figurines were scattered across a marbled fireplace mantel. It was Ella’s young and foolish friend, Neva Clarkson, who suggested reading
The History of Women’s Suffrage
. Ella could still see Neva’s round face turn as crimson as the rose petals when Sadie Donohue, a former schoolteacher herself and wife of the former mayor, reprimanded Neva’s mother for allowing her to read such propaganda. “Mr. Donohue says that women have no business getting mixed up in politics. A turn of the ballot will be a loss of purity in the home. Why, it will be a loss of the home itself, you mark my word.” Sadie’s arthritic and shaking finger pointed straight at Neva until the girl seemed to fold into the wingback chair. Her posture reminded Ella of one of the rabbits on the mantel, bent and ready to jump.

Now, all these years later, it was Ella who felt pressed to the point of shattering. With the newspaper declaring that it was only a matter of time before women cast their votes, Ella wondered if Old Lady Donohue had been right after all. Maybe it was an omen, like the kind that Narsissa cautiously delivered to her during breakfast after a restless night of dreams. Maybe she had been brought to this point of homelessness as a punishment by God Almighty for having secretly agreed with Neva that women had a rib as strong as Adam’s and a voice beyond the walls of their homes.

As Ella circled the magnolia tree, she was lost in the tortured thoughts that flashed in her mind like gray charcoal drawings: images of her standing by the lamppost at the corner of Commerce Street and in front of mounds of tattered fishnets at the docks in Apalachicola, begging with cupped, callused hands, relying on those who no longer recognized her as the niece of Katherine or the wife of Harlan.

Ella gripped the collar of her robe and hurried away from the scent of magnolia leaves. She made her way down to the stack of timber that lined the edge of the road. Crickets and bullfrogs called out from the thicket of pines yet to be touched. She pictured the pines all cut down to the low-lying ground covered with water and cypress trees, land so marshy that not even Harlan had been able to gamble its value. Harlan never did believe the spring that rose up in that section had the magical properties that Narsissa proclaimed. He couldn’t care less if Indians trekked four counties over to soak in the water. He saw no value in an artesian spring that was guarded by palmetto bushes, scrub oaks, and a vine-covered magnolia tree whose branches shaded ferns along the ravine.

When she turned to walk back toward the house, Ella paused at the barn. The Little Dipper lined the sky above the barn door, and she held her breath, hoping to hear Lanier inside. She pictured him sleeping, his curly hair hanging from the top of the pallet. There in the night air, warmth covered her body. Lifting the collar of her robe, she wondered how she might sketch Lanier in slumber. Embarrassment and sensation confused her. She barely knew this man, this drifter, after all. He was a distant relative of her husband, she told herself, nothing more. He would help her until the timber was cut, and then he would be on his way. She had no business getting mixed up in his troubles.
Funny,
she thought,
he’s already mixed up in mine.

A bat swooped down and then jetted over the top of the barn, barely missing the rooster-shaped weather vane. Ella stared at the barn door. Even though she wanted to move away, she couldn’t. She could not walk away from the hope that Lanier Stillis was so distant from her husband that he might be a good man after all. She stood there for a while longer, toying with the notion that Lanier was the man he claimed to be. Whether she would admit it or not, Ella needed for him to be something more than just a mere man running from trouble.

Keaton stood outside the one-room schoolhouse, hoping to avoid facing his teacher, Miss Neva Clarkson. Leaning against the peeling white fence that opened to the schoolyard, he picked at a piece of flaking paint and prayed that Macon would be one of the first ones to exit. The door swung open, and the Flander twins bounded down the steps. Keaton’s prayer, just like the one he prayed for his father to stop taking opium, was not answered. Watching the others walk toward the gate, Keaton pulled his cap down low. The last thing he needed was somebody asking questions.

Marla Davis, a girl with a missing front tooth, stopped and looked at him. “How come you ain’t been at school?”

“Been busy,” Keaton answered and looked up at the door, hoping to will Macon out of the schoolhouse.

Red Kennedy stopped long enough to adjust the strap tied around the books he carried. “You mean you been busy cutting pines like a pulpwood ninny.”

Marla laughed and covered her mouth. “Who’s that man staying at your house?”

“My daddy’s cousin.” Keaton planted his hands in his pockets and looked back at the door.

Red looked at Marla and laughed. “That’s what his mama tells him. She tells him that so that he won’t question why she’s got a man living there. Shacking up like white trash.”

Just as Keaton balled his fist and took a step toward Red, Miss Clarkson stepped out of the door with Macon trailing behind her.

“What’s this fuss?” Miss Clarkson called out. She had auburn hair and a round face that made her seem heavier than she was.

“He was trying to pick a fight,” Red yelled.

“Keaton Wallace. It’s not bad enough that you skip school, but you show up and cause trouble on top of it.”

“No, ma’am,” Keaton stammered. “He was—”

“He was picking a fight,” Red yelled again.

“Enough.” Miss Clarkson swiped her hand across the gray skirt that she wore, and a mark of white chalk was left on the material. “Red, Marla . . . get on home.”

The others wasted no time in leaving the schoolyard, but Keaton was reluctant to walk beyond the gate. Miss Clarkson motioned with her finger, and he slowly moved forward. Keaton could see into the school and tried to make out the cursive words written on the chalkboard. He feared that before the pines were cut he would forget everything he had learned and would be forced to repeat his grade.

“What is this business about you and Samuel skipping school? I know sickness, and sickness doesn’t linger with brothers for two weeks.” Auburn strands stuck out from the bobbed hair on her head. All Keaton could hear were the taunts that others in his grade made behind Miss Clarkson’s back. Taunts about the hairstyle making Miss Clarkson look like a little boy.

Macon looked up at her and then down at the wooden sidewalk patched together with rusted nails. Keaton followed his gaze and then, thinking that Miss Clarkson would believe he was lying, looked back right into her eyes. “We’ve been helping Mama.”

“I suppose cutting trees is more important than passing grades.”

“Yes, ma’am. . . . I mean no, ma’am. Ummm . . . I was wondering if I could keep up with my lessons while I’m out. I can come get Macon after school and find out what everybody did that day and . . .”

“Those are privileges for students who cannot come to school because of afflictions. Not for those who choose to play hooky.” The sternness of her voice caused Keaton to put his hands back into his pockets. Miss Clarkson clicked her heels together the same way the girl did in his favorite book,
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
. If only he could do the same and disappear.

“Now your mother knows better than this,” Miss Clarkson continued. “Ella, of all people. If she would have kept after her own education, then she wouldn’t . . . well, let’s just say she knows the importance of being educated.”

“We have to cut the timber to pay the bank back,” Macon quickly said. Keaton wanted to punch him for telling their personal business. No matter how bad it had gotten, their mother had told them to always hold their heads high and say nothing.

“I can appreciate that, but I understand there is a man at your house who can do such work. And speaking of this man . . . who exactly is this person?”

Keaton stared hard at Macon as if to tell him in some telepathic way that if he said another word, Keaton would punch him but good. “He’s my daddy’s cousin,” Keaton said just like Ella had told him to if anyone asked about the man in the box. “He’s come to help out for a while.”

Miss Clarkson rose up on her toes and brushed the chalk stain from her skirt. “Mm-hmm.”

Keaton felt an invisible force pushing his shoulders down. He kept thinking that if his father had never gotten sick and started taking the opium, none of this would be happening to them. He hated the opium and pictured himself jumping up and down and crushing all of the glass vials that his father had tucked inside his pants pocket over the past year. Then he’d click his heels and make an invisible wall around the store, a fortress that would never let any opium enter.

Walking back home with Macon in his care, Keaton didn’t punch his brother for telling their secrets. Keaton didn’t say anything at all. He just slowly walked down the dirt road dotted with clay-covered rocks and dried moss and pretended to listen as Macon rattled on about a new marble he’d won during recess. Unlike times past, Keaton didn’t bother to chase away the feeling of hatred for his father. Today he let it seep in and settle inside his soul.

The lunch crowd was just beginning to thin out of the Owl Café in Apalachicola as Clive Gillespie walked past. The top of his derby hat brushed the shoulders of the business owners who filed out. The men nodded reluctant pleasantries to Clive, whose popularity among the citizens matched his stature. He stood five foot six. Looking up to the men coming out of the restaurant and tilting his chin back with authority, Clive had no way of knowing that two of the men whose businesses were being foreclosed on had just finished off two dozen oysters and talked about doing the same to Clive. He was on a tear, calling in loans, turning a deaf ear to financial hardships, and taking over prime downtown real estate. “It’s all within the law,” he would answer to the few who threatened to challenge him in court.

Inside the office of the
Apalachicola Times
, the new city reporter, a boyish man who still had polish left on his shoes from his graduation ceremony, sat with his long legs stretched across a desk piled high with yesterday’s newspapers. A small open window sat above the printing press that was still smoldering from use. Every time the hot breeze swept in from the window, the curtains parted, revealing a flock of seagulls hanging in midflight above the dock outside.

When Clive opened the door and the bell rang, the young man didn’t even bother to lower today’s edition. He held the paper up in front of him like a blockade. “What might you need?”

“I thought lunch hour ended fifteen minutes ago.”

The sound of Clive’s voice caused the young man to jump and the paper to rumple. He tossed it to the desk and sprung up, straightening a faded blue necktie.

“Yes, sir, Mr. Gillespie. Have another foreclosure for me to list?”

Clive half grunted and half laughed. “That’s yesterday’s news.”

The young man sat back down at the desk and dug a notepad from underneath the stack of papers.

“Is Levitt here?” Clive asked.

“No, sir, he’s over in Carrabelle today, covering the new train route that’s coming through.”

“Well, he and I have been talking for some time about a series of . . . not stories . . . but I guess you could say . . .”

“Editorials.”

“Why, sure.
Editorials
would fit the bill. We were talking about a series that calls the townspeople out of this malaise. To remind them of what this city once was . . . what it can be again.” Clive massaged the acne scars on the side of his face. “Yeah, I am confused. We keep talking, but he never starts writing.”

The young man scribbled notes on his pad. “People want progress here. The government keeps talking about putting a ship-building plant here. You know, with the war and all.”

“Somehow the words
government
and
progress
don’t excite me. No, what I’m talking about is huge.” Clive unbuttoned the top of his jacket and bent down closer to the young man’s face. “I’m talking about an event that will generate so much revenue, it will make King Cotton look like a pound of mullet. I’m talking about a national figure coming to Apalachicola and making claims that have never been made before. A theologian, you might as well call him. A man who is set to make a revelation about a piece of land in our county that no other place in the world can claim.”

As the young man scribbled on his pad, Clive reached down and pulled the pencil from his fingers. “I’m talking off the record for now. But you need to build this event. If you start a whole series about this area needing an economic lift, well . . . just maybe you’ll get one too.” Clive winked, and the young man’s eyes widened. Clive picked up the pencil and tossed it on a stack of papers with yesterday’s news. “Off the record. I’m about to fill you in on something the likes of which Franklin County has never seen.”

On a Saturday morning when the daylight air was already thick as wool, Ella took the newspaper that she hadn’t had time to read and wrapped the pages around the sandwiches she’d made for that day. The headline “Apalachicolans Looking for a Miracle” and part of the column listing the latest foreclosures covered a ham sandwich. She tucked it inside the tin pail along with the others.

After the sandwiches were eaten and the paper wrappings balled up and trashed, neither whipping nor pulling could make the oxen or mule move. Ella, fearing what the community might say if she continued to cut her timber on Sundays, heeded Narsissa’s warning that the defiant animals were a sign. “If God can make a jackass talk like the Good Book says, then He can sure have His way with yours, too.” Tomorrow would be the first Sunday since Lanier had arrived that they didn’t cut, stack, and count timber.

“If we don’t wind up walking the streets, it’ll be a miracle,” Samuel protested that evening as he flung rusted chains back into the pile of equipment. Ella, frozen, stood at the barn door, feeling sweat run from her hair and cascade into her ears. She pretended not to hear him and forced an awkward smile at Lanier, who stared at Samuel.

Daybreak on Sunday cast a weak glow across the inside of the barn. The mule plowed at the dirt and knocked his head against the stall door. After Lanier had fed and watered the animal, he put on the shirt he washed the night before and slipped out through the barn door. He eased past the pair of oxen that were standing in the pen Samuel had built.

By now he had learned all of their schedules. Narsissa would wake first and then Ella. Together they would prepare the breakfast, and Samuel would come out to pump water for the morning. Lanier didn’t want to be around them this morning. There was a stamp of darkness on him again. He had feared that it would return. For a while he had succeeded at keeping it at bay, but this morning he had awoken with its grip around his neck again. It was an iron yoke that Old Lady Cash, the woman who wore a man’s torn felt hat and her deceased husband’s dungarees, had called a generational curse. She had informed him of his curse on a summer’s day years ago when he had skipped school and was down by the edge of the creek, cutting the water with thrown rocks. As he picked up a piece of slate with a green streak down the middle, he felt someone grab his wrist. Three teeth stuck out from her mouth, and her gray eyes had a wildness that caused Lanier to look back toward home. She stood over him the same way the lush mountain in the background towered over her.

“Your mama know you out here?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The grip tightened, and when she turned her head, the old woman’s felt hat tipped farther to the side. “Don’t you tell me no story.”

Lanier had heard that she was a witch who could read minds. “No, ma’am. She don’t know.”

“Just what I figured,” Old Lady Cash said and released his wrist. She groaned when she reached down and stuck a wooden bucket into the creek. Water rushed against the sides and into the bucket. The woman held the side of her hip when she lifted the bucket back up. “A sorry liar. That daddy of yours was right up yonder with the Prince of Lies. You no different, I reckon.”

Lanier was ten. Even though his mother forbade him from mentioning the father he could only recall through broken memories of wayward grins and screaming fights, others had gladly told him at school. A rapist. A murderer. A caged beast. A dead man walking in the Atlanta prison. Lanier had heard them all, the taunts told right to his face and those whispered behind his back.

“They might tell you you’re a fatherless child, but that ain’t nothing but a lie. That man’s seed got aholt of you, and there ain’t nothing you can do to stop it,” the woman said. Water sloshed when she walked away. “He killed my sister, and he’ll pay for that the rest of his life and on until the next. The den of hades has his name on it. I know, ’cause I seen to it. I cursed that daddy of yours the day they hauled him out in front of the judge. Right then and there I cursed his whole generation. Ain’t a thing you can do to stop it neither.” When she got to the top of the bank, she laughed and dipped her hands into the water. She flicked her fingers at him, and water hit his face. Lanier flinched but didn’t blink. He let the cool water soak into his skin the same way he soaked in his father’s shame.

As Lanier walked deeper into the brush, past where they had cut timber the day before, a branch from a scrub oak slapped his face, stinging him back to the present. Old Lady Cash’s words were as heavy on him as the day they had first been delivered.
Forgive me my trespasses as I forgive those who trespass against me,
he kept repeating in his mind. But no matter how many times he recited the words or closed his eyes and pictured them scribbling across a blank page, he could never relieve himself of the sins of the father. The past shaded his mind until at times he was certain darkness had overtaken him, had sought him out the same way he figured it had eclipsed his father.