Man in the Moon (5 page)

“I’m tired of him being stuck around this house all day, wandering in and out. He’s been eating us out of house and home, which isn’t hard to do since you don’t have a job and we can barely buy groceries anyway! He’s as worthless as you are. And don’t think you can fool me anymore, either. I’ve been smelling beer on your breath—”

I’d heard enough. I went to my room and got ready for bed. Their argument still seeped through the walls, so I grabbed my pillow and squeezed it over my ears. I kept my light off and sat looking out the window.

There were Mr. Lunas and Buddy, wandering out near the cornfield. I watched Mr. Lunas pick up the coffee can, swirl the water around, then turn it up for a long drink. I could almost taste the marshmallow as I watched him gulp that whole thing down.

I settled back onto the bed. Could Mama really talk Daddy into kicking Mr. Lunas out of the house? I hoped not. He was the one thing that made this summer different from all the others. Different? Yeah. Different was good. Suddenly I stopped thinking and froze on the spot. I heard Buddy out near the cornfield . . . howling at the moon again.

Phase Six—Waning Gibbous

M
r. Lunas made himself scarce. We barely saw him during the next couple of days. I wondered if he’d heard Mama and Daddy fighting. Or maybe he just knew something was up because they weren’t speaking to each other. I hated that.

Mr. Lunas was a lot like a puzzle. Trying to figure him out took my mind off the blues and the blahs. But now he would leave before breakfast and come back after dinner each day. He’d lost a few pounds, and his jolly face was looking thinner. Daddy sliced open a watermelon for dessert one night, and Mr. Lunas just sat and nodded while we spit out seeds and dribbled juice down our chins. I couldn’t imagine anybody turning down watermelon!

I guess he was still drinking that moon water, although the moon was starting to get a dark rim around its edges. It was a pretty sight, sitting out at night and watching it shine down on the cornfield, but the face on the moon was disappearing, a little at a time.

“I finally got the wheels off that baby buggy,” Ricky said as we sat on the porch one morning, watching fat cotton clouds breeze across the sky.

“It took you long enough.” I could see some scrapes and small cuts on his hands. I guess that oil can didn’t work quite as well as when Mr. Lunas was there. Or maybe Ricky couldn’t spin the wheels as good. “Wait a minute!” I said, remembering something. “How did you get the wheels off? You haven’t even been outside.” Mama had been in such a bad mood the last two days that Ricky hadn’t dared ask to go out. When Mama was in a mood she could snap like a crocodile.

Ricky grinned and put his finger over his lips.

“That’s bullcorn! You haven’t been sneaking out, have you?”

He nodded.

“Sneaking out?”

“Shhh! Don’t go telling the whole world, idiot!”

I couldn’t believe that baby Ricky, Mama’s little pet, would disobey her. But knowing it sure brought out the devil in me. “You know, if you get caught they may lock you in your room for eternity . . . or longer!”

“I won’t get caught.”

“Are you sure?” I waggled my eyebrows at him to show that I had some leverage.

“You better not tell!” Ricky’s face was starting to turn a few shades of purple, like a spring turnip.

“What’ll you give me not to?”

“It’s what I’ll give you if you
do
tell that you need to worry about.” He spouted the words like a bully, but his skinny little butt didn’t scare me none. It was his anxious look that made me cow down.

“Janine, I’ve got to finish that go-cart.” I could hear a hint of begging in his voice. “It sure ain’t gonna build itself, and it’s all I can think about. Heck, it’s already August. I want a chance to ride it down the hill before school starts, ’cause you know darn well Mama won’t let me go outside after school. And the whole rest of the day is swallowed up at school.”

It was true. Mama only let Ricky outside to ride the bus to school and then home. She always went on and on in the mornings about whether he was too sick to attend or not, and in the afternoons she put him straight to bed, no matter how he felt. Of course she shipped me off every day, no matter what kind of bellyache I complained about. She’d even sent a permanent note to Ricky’s teacher saying he wasn’t allowed to go out for recess. I overheard his teacher once telling another teacher that it was a miserable existence. I’m just thankful that God put my gizzard in right. At least I can go out at recess, even with a bellyache.

“So what are you planning to do?” I asked him.

We could hear Mama off in the kitchen, baking pies. She had the radio on, and Hank Williams was whining about somebody’s cheating heart. We could hear Mama singing along with him.

“She seems to be in a good mood today,” Ricky said.

“I guess because Mr. Lunas hasn’t been around much.”

Ricky slumped when I said that. He seemed to like Mr. Lunas about as much as Buddy did. And I have to admit, as odd as he was, I liked him too.

“You think I should ask Mama if I can go out today?” Ricky wondered.

“I don’t know. She could say yes because she sounds happy. Or she could get mad and say no and be in a bad mood again.”

Ricky shrugged. “Would you ask her?”

“Me? It’s your dumb go-cart.”

“Yeah, but you promised to help me build it.”

“I was just doing my sisterly duty and trying to cheer you up. And I already sliced a chunk out of my foot on that thing.” I looked down at the wound, now barely visible. It reminded me of something, but I couldn’t quite figure out what. A crooked grin? A quarter moon? I was just thankful it healed so fast that I didn’t get lockjaw.

“I’ll let you go down the hill in it if you ask her.” He looked at me with puppy-dog eyes.

“I’ll go down the hill in it anyway.”

“How?” Ricky asked, scrunching his eyebrows.

“I’ll just ride it after school.”

I might as well have picked up a stick and beat the tar out of him. He suddenly looked whupped. “You’re hateful. I wish it was you who was stuck inside all the time instead of me!”

“I
am
stuck inside all the time.”

“Liar,” he said, his face taking on that turnip color again. “You can go outside anytime you want.”

True as that was, I couldn’t think of many reasons I even wanted to go outside. Not by myself, anyway. Then I thought about what Ricky’s teacher had said. I had to agree, it really must be a miserable existence. “Fine. I won’t ride your dumb go-cart after school.”

His face clouded up and I was afraid he might cry. “There won’t be a go-cart to ride after school if I can’t go outside to build it.”

I couldn’t argue with that, plus I was getting tired of feeling like a bully. “Okay, okay! I’ll ask her.”

We tiptoed inside and Ricky stood next to the kitchen door, out of sight. I saw Mama, rolling out a piecrust, her hands as white as the morning clouds. She scratched her nose with her forearm since her hands were covered in flour, and her big bottom wiggled to the music playing on the radio.

“Mama,” I said, low and sweet. “I was wondering something.”

Mama’s behind stopped wiggling, but she kept rolling the dough. “What’re you wondering about?”

“Well . . . I . . . I . . .” I felt like I needed someone to slap me on the back and knock the words out of my mouth.

“Stop stuttering and tell me,” Mama said. She didn’t sound mad. That was good.

“I was wondering if Ricky could go outside with me today.”

Mama flipped the piecrust over and a big puff of flour dust flew up around it. “Can’t y’all play in the house? It’s too darn hot for Ricky to go outside.”

I wasn’t sure how to argue with that. Mama had a portable fan pointing at her from the top of the icebox, but she was still sweating. There were wet rings on her dress, under her armpits, and around her collar.

“We could play under the shade tree.”

“I bet it’s a hundred degrees in that shade.”

She was probably right. “Maybe we could stretch an extension cord outside and put a fan under the tree to blow on us.”

Mama gave me a stern look. “You know darn well that Ricky can’t have that wind blowing down his lungs.”

“But that’s bullcorn!” Oops! I’d done it again.

“Don’t you start shooting your mouth off at me, young lady!” She pointed her sticky white finger in my face. Stringy bits of dough hung from it. Then she walked to the kitchen door and waggled her finger on the other side of it. “And you listen to me, mister! You need to start thinking more about your health. You know Daddy and I do the best we can for you. Now, you two go play somewhere in the house. I’ve got pies to put in the oven, and I want to get it done before the afternoon heat sets in and makes this kitchen too unbearable.”

I didn’t have to look at Ricky’s face. We both knew when Mama had the final word.

Ricky stomped through the kitchen door and headed for the living room. I figured he was planning to sulk inside the cave. I followed him and crawled under.

“I should run away from home,” he said, his voice cracking and his eyes watery.

“Then you’ll never get your go-cart built.”

He nodded his head hard. “Yeah, I will. I’m going to build my go-cart anyway. Then I’ll run away in it!”

That sounded plumb stupid. “Unless you plan to put a motor on it, you’ll have to run away downhill.”

Ricky hugged his legs and laid his head on his knees. “Maybe I’ll find an old lawn mower motor to put on it.”

“Or maybe you can sprinkle moondust on it and sail across the sky,” a voice said from across the living room.

Ricky and I both peeked through the piano bench. There was Mr. Lunas, sitting in a chair by the front door. He looked smaller perching there, his head resting on his hand.

“You’re dreaming,” Ricky said as he curled back into a ball to pout.

“And so are you,” Mr. Lunas replied. He got up from the chair and slowly crept across the room. His walk was starting to look weak, like when we’d first met him. As he went by the piano, he bent down and smiled. “But it’s good to dream, Ricky. It’s good.”

I watched him shuffle by, wondering what
he
dreamed about. Did old folks still have dreams?

“It’s more than a dream,” Ricky whispered to me. “It’s my only chance. I can either rot in this house or I can zoom out of here.”

I didn’t whisper anything back. Mostly because I thought he was dreaming too. And he wasn’t the only one rotting in this house. We were all starting to smell overripe.

We didn’t stay in the cave that afternoon, and we didn’t play in Ricky’s room, either. I spent the afternoon listening to records and laying on the bed, reading
Mr. Popper’s Penguins.
Here I sat, in Texas, the oven of America, while Mr. Popper had a wild time with his flapping friends from the Antarctic. I looked up for a minute to rest my eyes and saw Mr. Lunas coming out of the chicken coop. He had an ear of corn in one hand and an egg in the other. Maybe that was why he wasn’t eating anymore. Maybe he was sneaking off somewhere and making his own corn fritters. Naw . . . that was bullcorn. Why would he do that? Unless he was worried about us not having enough food. I watched him lay the corn and the egg down next to the coffee can, then shoo Buddy away from them. He had one of Mama’s towels from the kitchen, and he used it to cover them up.

I decided to play Nancy Drew and see if I could solve the mystery of Mr. Lunas. I hurried outside before he could wander off.

“Whatcha got?” I asked him, pointing at the things hidden under the towel.

“Art supplies,” he answered.

Why did I know he’d make a puzzle out of it? Maybe I should have stayed in my room after all. But like Nancy Drew, I pressed on. “Are you going to paint a picture?”

Buddy rolled the egg out with his snout, and Mr. Lunas rolled it right back. “Well, I’m not exactly Michelangelo,” he said, covering the corn and the egg with the towel again.

“Michelangelo? Who’s he?”

“An artist.”

I looked at the hidden objects again, wondering what Nancy Drew would ask next. “Hmmm . . . did he use corn and eggs to paint his pictures?”

Mr. Lunas tilted his head at me. “He used his imagination.”

“But using your imagination is only painting pictures in your head.”

“Yes!” he said, sounding like I’d discovered gold. “Isn’t that where all pictures start?”

Why did every conversation with him have to be a riddle? “Mr. Lunas, you’re teasing me.”

He ruffled my hair with his hand. “I am, aren’t I?”

“Well, aren’t you going to give me a straight answer?”

He grinned a mile-wide grin. “But that wouldn’t be teasing then, would it?”

“Mr. Lunas!”

He tilted his old gray head again. “I’ve given you nothing but straight answers, Janine. In time you’ll know how to line them up.”

He shuffled away, Buddy hard on his heels. Why was this so much easier for Nancy Drew?

I was trying to cool off on the back porch when Daddy’s Chevy puttered in. He stopped to pet Buddy, then walked up the driveway with his hand behind his back.

I couldn’t help smiling. “What’re you hiding?”

Daddy smiled right back. “Something for my special girl.”

I jumped at his sleeve and tried to wrestle his arm around to the front.