Alabama Moon (29 page)

A dump truck pulled away from the front-end loader just as we skidded to a stop. When the dust cleared, Mr. Mitchell was squinting at us from his driver's chair. He finally recognized me sitting beside Hal and shook his head. He shut off the loader and climbed down while Hal and I got out and walked to meet him.

“I shoulda known it was you had him wound-out, Moon.”

“He's goin' to Mobile, Daddy.”

Mr. Mitchell put his arm around Hal's shoulder and pulled him close. Hal didn't complain this time. “I heard about your uncle,” Mr. Mitchell said.

“He's gonna let me live with him.”

Mr. Mitchell smiled. “You gonna get fancy on us with a real house and grass and cars with all the windows?”

“I don't know anything about that.”

“Well, we're gonna miss you.” He squeezed Hal against
him. “Especially this fellow.” Hal glanced away and didn't say anything.

“I had the most fun ever here,” I said. “I wanna come back sometime. Maybe we can work some more on the truck.”

“Daddy says he'll keep it waitin' for me till I get out,” Hal said.

“You'll have to come get me in Mobile and take me ridin'. I might have my own truck by then. We can race.”

“Jesus!” Mr. Mitchell said.

“What?”

“You with a truck. Racin'.”

I smiled and looked at the ground. “Thanks for lettin' me stay with you.”

Mr. Mitchell patted me on the shoulder. “Any time, son. You get in touch with me if you ever need anything.”

Hal and I drove out of the clay pit. He went slow this time and I realized how much I'd miss the place. I figured Hal would miss it more.

“It ain't gonna be so much fun without you around anyway,” Hal said, like he knew what I was thinking. “I might as well let 'em take me off for a few more years.”

“It won't be so bad.”

“Daddy's pretty pissed off about it.”

“Let him come visit you in this truck. That'll make you feel better.”

“Yeah.”

“You'll be all right, Hal.”

Hal started to say something, but didn't. “I know,” he said.

We pulled up next to Mr. Wellington's truck and stopped. He was still waiting patiently. Hal got out and I met him by
the tailgate. I lifted my hand in a wave. “I guess I better go.”

“I guess you better. You gonna see Kit?”

“Goin' there now.”

“Tell him I said ‘hey' again. And tell him I'm gonna whip his little ass if he doesn't take his medicine.”

I smiled. “Okay. I will.”

Mr. Wellington let me out at the entrance to the hospital, and I walked into the lobby holding Kit's deerskin hat. This time, I waved to the woman at the front desk and she lowered her head and looked at me over her glasses.

I rode the elevator to the fourth floor and walked down the hall to Kit's room. I knocked on the door and waited. After there was no answer, I opened the door. The room was clean, the bed was made, and Kit was gone. I walked back to the nurses' station and stopped in front of the attendant. “Did Kit leave?”

She eyed me for a few seconds like she was trying to remember who I was. Finally, she asked me if I was related to him.

“I'm his best friend,” I said. I held up the hat. “I brought him this.”

She didn't look at the hat. “Are your parents with you?”

“No. I don't have any parents.”

“Who are you here with?”

“Mr. Wellington. Where's Kit?”

“He's in the intensive care unit. Only immediate family members are allowed in there.”

“What's an intensive care unit?”

“It's where people who are really sick go.”

My ears began to buzz with panic. “But he's better. I just saw him a few days ago.”

The nurse looked around and then back down at me. “He's had a relapse. He's become very sick again.”

“Where's his room?”

“No visitors are allowed in the intensive care unit.”

“I can't see him?”

The nurse shook her head. “I'm sorry.”

“But he doesn't like to be alone!” I yelled.

The nurse stood and leaned over the counter at me. “I think you need to go find the person who brought you here.”

I sat on the floor and crossed my arms. “I'm not leavin' until I see him.”

The nurse picked up the phone and watched me while she dialed. “Security,” she said, “I've got a young boy up here without a guardian and he's giving me trouble . . . Yes . . . I don't know . . . Okay.” She hung up the phone and sat down again.

“I'll whip anybody that tries to take me out of here before I see Kit.”

When the security officer arrived, he bent down to grab me. I sprang to action and rolled over and clamped onto a metal pole. He followed and began to pry my arms loose. I was just about to punch him between the legs when I heard Mr. Wellington behind us. “Hey!” he said. “That's enough. I can handle him.”

The security officer stood, stepped away, and took a deep breath.

“Thank you,” Mr. Wellington said. “I can take it from here. Moon?”

I hugged the pole tighter and didn't answer. Mr. Wellington knelt down and put his hand on my shoulder. As soon as he touched me I began to cry. “I just saw him a few days ago!”

“There's nothing more we can do here, Moon. The doctors will take care of Kit.”

“I don't trust anybody. Leave me alone!”

“Sir,” the nurse said, “may I speak with you privately?”

I saw Mr. Wellington step away with the nurse. I hugged the pole and fought off my tears, still keeping the shoes of the security officer where I could see them.

After a few minutes Mr. Wellington and the nurse returned. “Moon,” he said. “Kit's in very serious condition. There's a chance you might not see him again.”

I didn't answer him.

“He—”

“I'm not leavin' him. He doesn't wanna be alone.”

Mr. Wellington stared down at me without speaking for several seconds. Finally, he turned to the nurse and said, “I can tell you that it's going to take more than one security officer to get him out of here. Can he stay for the night?”

“Not right there.”

“He'll stay in the waiting area.”

“Fine with me,” the nurse said. “Just as long as he doesn't cause trouble.”

There were no windows or clocks in the waiting area down the hall, so there was no way for me to tell how long I was there. I didn't sleep but just stared at a picture of a flower garden that hung on the wall over a telephone. People moved
in and out of the room, some crying and some without any expression, all talking in whispers. But none of them talked to me. Mr. Wellington had said that he would come back, but I didn't care.

At some point a nurse came into the room and asked me if I needed anything, and I shook my head.

“Mr. Wellington's been calling to check on you. He said to tell us if you need anything to eat or want him to come pick you up.”

I nodded and she watched me for a minute before walking away. I continued to stare at the picture and after a while began to count the flowers. Many more people came and went from the waiting room before Mr. Wellington came through the door and sat down beside me.

“Moon, you've been here for twelve hours. The nurse says you haven't slept or eaten.”

“I don't need anything.”

“I can get you something to eat.”

“I just wanna see Kit.”

“I checked with the doctor and they don't have anything to tell me yet. He's still in intensive care.”

“Why won't they let me see him? I just wanna give him his hat.”

“Even if they did let you in, he wouldn't know you were there. He's unconscious.”

“He'd know.”

Mr. Wellington sighed. “So you want to stay here?”

I nodded.

“Very well. I'm leaving money at the nurses' station in case you want to buy something to eat.”

I counted the flowers in the picture over and over until my eyes were stinging. More visitors moved in and out of the room and sat on either side of the chair I was in. Eventually, I fell asleep.

I dreamed of the shelter again, and the stage-two box. This time Bigfoots were not trying to get in, but I could hear them howling like wolves in every direction. It seemed that they had taken over the world, and I was the last human alive, hidden from them in the safest part of our shelter. Then I heard Kit yelling for me from somewhere outside.

“Moon!” he screamed. “Let me in!”

The howling of the Bigfoots suddenly quit like they, too, had heard Kit's cries for help. I imagined them running towards him with their long, silent strides. I began wrestling with the door of the box, trying to open it. Kit screamed for me again.

A man beside me nudged me awake, and I lunged for him and grabbed his arm. I opened my eyes and he stared at me. “Are you okay?” he asked me.

I didn't answer him. I leaped from my chair and ran into the hall. I looked both ways, hearing my breathing and my heartbeat as the only noise in the hospital. The women at the nurses' station stopped what they were doing and watched me. I began to run down the hall, looking for any sign of where Kit was. “Kit!” I yelled. “Kit, I'm right here!” I heard the nurses calling after me. A set of swinging doors stood in my way, and I shoved them open and kept running.

“Stop that kid!” a nurse behind me yelled.

Suddenly I felt someone grab me. A doctor in a white uniform
lifted me from the ground and hugged me to his chest. “Kit!” I cried. He began walking with me back towards the nurses' station, and I relaxed in his arms and didn't try to escape. “I'm not whippin' up on anybody,” I mumbled. “I just want my friend back.”

When I opened my eyes, Mr. Wellington was sitting beside me. I could tell he was tired by the dark circles under his eyes and his messed-up hair. He reached over and picked a cup of water off the table beside him and handed it to me. I took it and drank, the water soothing my dry throat.

“It's time to go, Moon.”

I looked up at him and his eyes were red.

“I tried to find him,” I said. “He's alone.”

Mr. Wellington put his hand on my shoulder. “Kit's gone. I'm sorry.”

It was three in the afternoon when I left the hospital with Mr. Wellington. I leaned back against the truck door and watched the countryside pass outside the window.

“Do you want anything to eat, Moon?”

I shook my head no.

“It's tough to lose a friend, Moon. I've lost friends myself. But I promise you things get better again. You just have to try and look to the future. Try not to dwell on it for too long.” Mr. Wellington reached across the seat and started to take the hat from me. “Why don't you let me take that—”

“Don't you touch it!” I yelled.

 

When we got back to the lodge, the sun had just set. I told Mr. Wellington that I wanted to sleep outside that night, and he nodded that he understood. I took a yellow pad of paper and a pencil from inside the lodge and walked to the edge of the clearing. I scraped the leaves from the base of a juniper tree and sat against it and began building a small fire from its bark. Once I had the fire going, I took the pad and pencil and began writing to Kit.

At first I told him how much I missed him and reminded him that we were best friends. Afterwards I began to tell him about when I was little. I started with the first memories of my mother, like a yellow finch, beside me in the bed at night. My first clear memory was of Pap carrying me on his shoulders up the trunk of a leaning gum tree. We sat in its branches and waited for deer in the dawn hours of a cold winter day. He hugged me into the warmth of his lap, and I could see his breath clouding over my head and dissolving in front of us.

The first time I killed a deer I was six. Pap cut open the doe's stomach and cupped his hands to bring out the warm and steaming blood. He brought it up to my face and smeared it so that it streaked past my ears and into my hair that became sticky and matted. I was proud of this time, and I told Kit all about it.

It seemed that I was always watching Pap's hands. They
were careful, powerful hands, and they taught me what I knew of survival in the forest. I told Kit about these hands and then about what they had taught me. I described the process of building a snare, stick by stick. I described a deadfall for him, complete with pictures. I made a list of everything that went into skinning and curing hides. I listed the vegetables that we grew, the best times of year to plant them, and how deep to place their seeds in the soil. I knew that Kit would want to know all of these things.

Finally I told Kit exactly what had happened to my pap and what I'd felt when he died. I remembered the daylight creeping into the forest that cold morning. Pap was already stiff by the time I could see his face in the light. My hand had rested on his cheek and felt it grow cold. I remembered how cloudy it was and how much wind passed through the trees that day. I told Kit about struggling to get Pap into the wheelbarrow as the fog hung between the giant trunks of the loblolly pines and squirrels fussed at the struggle from above.