There's Blood on the Moon Tonight (9 page)

The white shrimpers, those
not
from Moon Island, selling their wares alongside his daddy were something else altogether, their hostility more out in the open. Their hatred personified by the Rebel flags flying from their sterns. Their youth and anger (and yes, their
fear
), at the changing times, made them far more dangerous than their toothless elders. More than once that day Ham heard that pasty lot call his father a
“
Nigger
.”
A word Ham was unfamiliar with, yet one which instinctively churned his guts.

One fat gomer, wearing a greasy John Deere cap, even went so far as to kick one of their baskets of iced shrimp “accidentally” off the side of the dock. Ham watched bug-eyed, his heart beating like a big ‘ol bass drum in his ears, waiting for his father to erupt and give that redneck asshole what for…

But Jessie just turned his back to the fat man and returned to his work. As if the loss of all those shrimp didn’t matter one little bit. Oh, the shame…
the
shame!

The mocking laughter of the rednecks followed Ham and his daddy as they meekly loaded the rest of their catch back onto the
Moon Maiden,
and then made for home. His father refused to look at his son, too embarrassed to explain to Ham the way of things outside their island paradise. Ham had welcomed the silence. For the first time in his life he was ashamed of his father. More than that, he was
angry
. Angry with white people for treating his daddy that a-way. Angry that they’d ruined the image he’d had of his father. Angry that his idea of how the world worked and his place in it was a
got
-damned lie!

He felt betrayed by the white folks on Moon, certain that they must have been laughing at him this whole time.
Laughing at dumb ol’ Ham! Stupid
little
nigger!

He couldn’t wait to take that anger out on the first white person he saw—and the first one he saw that ugly afternoon was Joe Rusty O’Hara.

Joe Rusty’s family rented a small, two-bedroom, one-bath cottage from the Huggins’s, on the other side of the lighthouse. The second rental house, in fact, that Jessie Huggins had built. Naturally, the boys being the same age and living so close by had become fast friends. Ham intended on rectifying that situation. Later that same day when Joe Rusty made the short trek over to his house, to bring Ham his birthday gift, Ham had sent him packing.

“Don’t come ‘round here, no more, white boy!”
Ham had shouted into his best friend’s bewildered face.
“I hate you! I hate you! I HATE YOU!”

Joe Rusty, looking puzzled and hurt, had stood there on Ham’s front porch for a moment more, unsure on how to respond to his best friend’s outburst. He blinked a couple of times, then calmly placed Ham’s birthday gift on a rocking chair by the front door. He looked over once more at Ham and then walked away.

              Jessie, who’d seen the whole miserable thing take place from inside the cabin, realized his mistake in not talking this business through with his son.

“
Sammy,”
he’d said, pulling Ham to the backyard, where they’d had a seat on top of the picnic table. “
If’n you chased that boy from here because of what you saw in Beaufort today, then I’m ashamed of you.”

His daddy ashamed of
him
? Ham couldn’t believe his ears!
“Daddy, you let those men treat you like dirt! I hate white people! And I hate Rusty O’Hara!”

“
Hate? Boy, what you know ‘bout hate?”
Jessie had spat.
“I spent my whole life dealing with rednecks like that heifer in the John Deere hat. I suppose if anyone ‘round here has the right to hate, it’s your mama and me. But don’t you see, son; if’n I let that emotion into my heart, then I’d be no better than those pitiful scared white boys.”

“Scared?’”
Ham had scoffed. “
‘Daddy, all due respect, the only one scared today was you!”

For a second Ham thought he had taken it too far. A dark cloud passed over his father’s leathery face. His eyes narrowed into angry slits. “
All
due
respect
, huh? Shoot, if that’s your idea of
respect
, then I’d surely hate to see you
disrespect
me! Sam, every day but Sunday I take my load to them docks. Now, if’n I be the scaredy-man you think I am, why would I do such a thing? I make more than enough from the rents for us to live just the way we is. Tomorrow, come rain or redneck, I’ll set up my stand like I always do. Sell my wares, and like the Good Book say, I’ll turn my cheek if need be. Ask me, that takes more courage than throwin’ down with some fool who wasn’t raised right!

‘So, tell me, mister loud talkin’
man!
Do you really think your daddy’s a coward?”

Ham blushed right down to his boots. He had made his old man angrier than he’d ever seen him before. And yet despite what Jessie said, Ham couldn’t let it go. “
Then why’d you let that fat man kick our shrimp bucket off the dock? Had to be close to fifty dollars worth in there!”

Jessie nodded glumly. “
I know how that must have looked, son. But let me ask you this…if’n I did step up to that fat fool, what you think happen next?”

Ham looked down at his work boots, refusing to reply, despite knowing full well the answer. He’d been in enough playground scrapes to know how bullies worked.

“
That’s right, boy!”
Jessie exclaimed, smiling.
“That there battle wouldn’t have been between Mr. Heifer and ol’ Jess Huggins. No sir! I would have had to fight mos’ every white man on that dock! And to what end, pray tell? Just so my son could see me stand tall to a stupid jackass that don’t mean nothing to me, no how? Sam… do I have to prove I’m a
Man
to you?”

“No, sir!”
Ham had sobbed. He’d thrown himself into his father’s arms and hugged him tight. The smell of the sea infused every fiber in his father’s flannel work shirt. “
But why those white men treat you like that, Daddy? Like you’s the dirt on they shoes?”

“It all comes down to that word you so thoughtlessly tossed about, boy. Hate.”

“But
why
they hate us?”
Ham had insisted on knowing.
“What’d we do to them?”

“Because it’s what they’ve been taught, and it goes back a ways, too. That redneck mos’ likely learned his hate from his daddy, his daddy from his daddy, and so on and so on. And if he has a son of his own, you can bet that poor child hates us too. That’s their loss, Sam. Not ours. A man can’t get to Heaven with that kind of spite in his soul. They’ll spend eternity twistin’ on the devil’s pitchfork, while we bask in the glory of God. Praise
Jesus
!

Jessie laughed and rubbed his son’s head.
Just remember, Sammy. The
only
victory a hateful man gets is teaching his hate to others…

“Be they his sons or his enemies.”

“So, when I hate them…”

“Then they
win
. And the hate…it goes on and on…”

And so life had continued peacefully on Moon. Ham, now that he knew how the real world worked, avoided the mainland for as long as he could. But he knew his self-imposed exile was only temporary. For he couldn’t step into his daddy’s shoes until he’d found the courage to stand tall in them. Someday he’d have to brave that ugly world over there again. Until then, he was content on just being a boy—living on an island he considered his very own playground. Eventually Ham made that trip back to the mainland, and to his great surprise, the world had indeed changed. Oh, racism was still alive and well—Jessie had told him it was one of the devil’s favorite tools, and therefore would never go out of style—but it wasn’t nearly as overt anymore. And for a short time, Jessie and Son sold their wares side-by-side on the Beaufort docks.

And oh boy, life was
good
.

But like Ham’s childhood on Moon, this idyllic period with his father ended much too soon.

The same sea that had given Jessie so much over the years finally called its marker due. After getting no response on the radio one blustery spring morning, Reva Huggins called on her son and his best friend, both of whom had recently gone into business together on Ham’s new boat, to go out and look for Jessie.

One hour later, nineteen-year old Rusty O’Hara called back with the bad news. They’d found the
Moon Maiden
idling some three hundred yards off Crater Cove, with no sign of Jessie…on board or off.

In the background, Reva could hear the anguished cries of her only child, calling out to his father:

“Daddy!
Daddy!! D-A-D-D-D-YYYYY!!!”

Two days later Jessie’s body washed up on the sands of Crater Cove. A sand dollar’s throw from the log home he’d built with his own hands. Every citizen on Moon attended his funeral; even that white trash, the Noonans,’ felt obliged to show their respects. Working the sea has always been one of the most dangerous professions known to man. There are a hundred-and-one ways to lose your life on the open water, but Jessie Huggins had succumbed to the number one killer: He’d fallen overboard. And since he employed no mates, not since his son went out on his own, there had been no one to help him in his time of need. This just added to the weight of guilt and grief Ham carried on his shoulders. He felt like he should have been there with his daddy, rather than on his own boat. But the decision to go out on his own had always been Jessie’s, not Ham’s to make. His daddy had
insisted
he go his own way! And to insure that his reluctant son did just that, Jessie had given Ham his own shrimp boat as a present on his wedding day. Besides, Jessie Huggins preferred to fish alone; everyone knew that. The man had a solitary soul that only the lonely sea could appease.

Nevertheless, Ham was unable to forgive himself for not being there when his old man needed him most. Sadly enough, it was a feeling he would know again, in the not too distant future. As if God was piling it on, three weeks after his father’s death, Ham suffered another devastating blow. His mother passed on in her sleep.

Jessie’s sudden death had left Reva heartbroken and unwilling to carry on. The cabin Ham and his new bride had been sharing with his parents was now theirs alone.

As was Jessie’s growing fortune.
             

Unlike his father, Ham didn’t have any romantic notions about the sea. He knew her to be a killer, lying in wait for those who didn’t take the blue bitch seriously enough. That’s why, when he went out on his own, he didn’t think twice about making his best friend, Joe Rusty O’Hara, a full partner. It didn’t matter that Joe Rusty didn’t have any money to invest in their partnership; his worth as a man more than made up for his lack of funds. Some things you just can’t put a price on. Because when a man such as
that
has your back…well, that there, as the commercial says, ‘is priceless.’

Rusty and Ham had gone to the same two-room schoolhouse on Moon. Back then the school only went to the eighth grade. If you wanted to attend high school, you had to take the six a.m. ferry to the mainland. Rusty and Ham chose not to. Their whole lives they’d known what their futures held, and they’d eagerly awaited the day when they could begin them in earnest. By the time they dropped out of school, both boys were just literate enough to get by.

In
The Body,
Stephen King’s seminal tale about friendship, the author reminds us that the best friends we’ll ever know are those we make as kids. Never was this more true than with Ham Huggins and Joe Rusty O’Hara. Their childhoods were as one. Their coming of age a shared experience. Together they explored the island’s woodlands. Playing War in the many sinkholes pockmarking the forest floor. They knew where the largemouth bass liked to hide in Lizard Lake, and which oyster beds still produced offshore. Together they plumbed both marine and fresh water depths in the two-man Jon-Boat they’d built together, learning early on their life’s calling.

The two boys did everything together.

They even met their future wives together.

Three years after finishing school on Moon, Rusty called on Ham for a favor. It seemed he’d met this young buxom blonde, Shayna Petterson, and had asked her out on a date to the new Drive-In movie theatre.

The girl had said yes, on one condition: that Rusty find a date for her good friend Betty Anne Atkins.

Even though he wasn’t exactly thrilled about it, Ham agreed to take her out. He’d seen this Betty Anne back when he was in school. She was a year younger than Ham, and was, the last time he’d seen her, skimpier than a beanpole’s shadow. A mere wisp of a thing

To Ham’s happy surprise, Betty Anne was no longer skimpy
or
wispy! In fact, the girl had filled out altogether nicely. With his mouth hanging open like he’d lost all sense, Ham watched her walk out of her home, on the newly developed West Side, where the finest houses on Moon stood overlooking the sea. Her beauty had so flustered him that he’d neglected to get out of the truck and open the passenger door for her! It was a lucky thing he’d decided to pick up Betty Anne first. If Rusty had seen how stupid he’d looked, with his mouth unhinged like that, he never would have heard the end of it.