Finton Moon (37 page)
NEWFOUNDLAND WOLF
(Thought to be extinct)
Inside the cage, a yellow-eyed, dog-like animal with matted, grey fur and a dark strip all the way down its back and tail, lay shivering from either hunger or fearâprobably both. Finton glanced nervously around. When he finally crept towards the “wolf” cage, a mustached man in a uniform appraised him, and Finton held his breath, waiting to be collared. Ultimately, however, the security detail moved on, hands clasped behind his back, only to linger near the very spot where Finton had illegally entered.
Finton exhaled and turned his attention to the unkempt animals who, with their mud-and-straw coats and rib-baring skins that hung off them like clothes handed down from a superior generation, were decidedly less majestic than he'd expected. A couple of boys slightly younger and yet bigger than Finton used sticks to poke at them through the bars, trying to provoke a growl from the docile creatures. Alas, they seemed incapable of raising a mewl and barely managed to appear annoyed. “Leave them alone!” Finton yelled. One of the boys turned around and whacked Finton's arm. The attack stung and left a small gash on his skin, but he was vindicated to see the boys run off to their negligent fathers, who drank beer from waxen Coca-cola cups, and leave the animals to seal their crusted eyes in suffering silence. Instinctively, he laid a palm over the cut for a few seconds, but when he lifted his hand to see, the cut was still bleeding.
Trying to ignore his sudden misgivings about the circus, he ambled toward a clearing that appeared an ideal spot for watching the acts. The makeshift bleachers were bursting with people, but dozens stood attentively at the perimeter of the rings, awaiting the start of the show. The loudspeakers blared circus music while the aroma of buttered popcorn thickened the air, but when the ringmaster entered and announced the trapeze act, Finton felt strangely unmoved. He marveled at the beautiful, strong women and lean, handsome men in their sequined costumes as they flung each other into the air like angels engaged in cloud-tossing, and they always caught each other, making the audience gasp in fearful wonder. But Finton's compulsion to keep looking over his shoulder spoiled his enjoyment. He kept waiting to be grabbed by the collar and escorted to the police station and, eventually, to the boys' home in Whitbourne. Much worse, his criminal activity would make his mother cry and Nanny Moon pray for him as she read him Bible passages and went “tut-tut” as she shook her embarrassed head.
He was relieved when the circus was over. On his way out, he presented his five dollars to the blonde girl sitting at the table, selling tickets for the next show. “I snuck in,” he confessed when she regarded him quizzically.
Through the mid-afternoon throng, he saw the Dredges bustling to the Volkswagen, gabbing and laughing, as one boy pulled on Alicia's sleeve. He wondered if he should have asked her out. But he thought better of it. They could finally be friends again, as long as Bernard Crowley stayed away, but to date her was courting trouble. Besides, she might say no, and he couldn't handle another rejection.
When he got home an hour later, he knew something was wrong. His parents and brothers were sitting sombre faced on the sofa and floor in front of the TV. A helicopter had perched on the lawn of the White House. President Nixon was waving, his rubbery, big-nosed face etched in mockery. “They were gonna impeach him,” his father said, sucking a vengeful draw from his Camel, then letting it dangle from his fingers like a smoking gun. “The lousy fuckers were out to get 'im.”
“Watch yer language in front of the children.” Elsie nudged him with her shoulder, but he stared stone-faced at the screen as the chopper lifted off.
Finton desperately wanted to hug his father, but couldn't allow himself that consolation because he knew how such a treacherous act of sympathy would play out in the world of Moon men. “But he's not our president,” he said.
“No, but I would've voted for 'im if I could. Goddamn right, I would've. He was a good man.”
On behalf of his father, Finton felt the loss. He sat with the family, just as he had done when Orr scored the goal and when Armstrong walked on the moon. Tragedy and heroism came from TV. The Moons might as well have been on television, for it was where their family began and ended. If heroes did not emerge from the screen, they did not appear at all except in books, but he was the only reader among them.
A montage of notable moments in the Nixon legacy flickered on the screen while the president's voice played over it: “For years, politicians have promised the moon; I'm the first one to be able to deliver it.” They watched as Nixon flew away to California, which didn't sound so bad, considering they had sunshine, gold, and women in skimpy bikinis, so it seemed natural to believe Nixon had set out for Paradise.
In the highlights of Nixon's press conferences, he always looked so shocked and defiantly saddened to have been accused. “People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook. I've earned everything I've got,” he said. He was leaving the White House, not because he was guilty, but because the country needed to begin “that process of healing which it so desperately needed.”
“Did he do what they said he did?” he asked his father that evening while Elsie was washing the supper dishes.
“If you ask me, he just got caught doing the same thing we all do.” Tom blew a ring around Finton's head. The boy lifted his nose and inhaled; the father appeared startled for a moment, then perplexed. “He just wasn't smart enough to hide it, that's all.”
“But what did he get caught doing?”
“He told a lie. That's all. Goddamn reporters went snoopin' around where they shouldn't have been.”
“Mom tells us we're not supposed to lie, ever.”
Tom took a long drag of the stubby Camel. “That's right. And don't ever let me catch ya.”
He wondered how long it would be before he stopped expecting the police to come and arrest him for sneaking into the circus.
The last weeks of summer raced towards the finish line. Finton read as much as he could, mainly from Thomas Hardy's
Far From the Madding Crowd
, keeping his place in the book with his photocopy of “Migrant Apple Picker.” Or, he would go to the library, browse
National Geographic
and read magazines about places he wanted to go.
“Look at this.” Clancy had a part-time job cleaning up at the trades school cafeteria and, now and then, he brought home some left-behind novelty, maybe a
Popular Mechanics
magazine or a partial pack of cigarettes, a lighter or a few coins. Today it was a copy of
The Daily News
, dated August 30, 1974. Finton stood behind him, peering over his shoulder. There was a headline: “Circus Animals Escape Overturned Truck.” He leaned in closer, but his brother repositioned himself and read aloud that almost all of the animals, including the lion and tiger, had been in cages that, thankfully, hadn't broken open. A couple of cages were damaged, but “nearly every animal was captured quickly.”
Finton grabbed for the paper, but Clancy was faster: “A circus spokesman says that, as of Wednesday afternoon, only a lone, grey wolf remains at large. However, they expect to recapture the animal soon.”
For the next few days, Finton imagined various scenarios in which he encountered the creature in the Laughing Woods. The highway was a long ways away, but he read that wolves were great travelers. As the season for picking Irish blackberries and blueberries came closer, he overcame his initial skittishness about going into the woods alone and began venturing there every day, wandering through the brush or sitting in the foxhole, hoping for a chance encounter. He went to the public library and looked up books on wolves. There wasn't much available, although one mentioned the extinction of the Newfoundland wolf in 1930 because of a government bounty. The real reason for the demise of the once-large population, however, might have been starvation, as the food sources for the wolf dwindled. The story was a sad one, reminding Finton of tales he'd read of the Beothuks and the Great Auk. Newfoundland had an apparent knack for pushing certain, noble species into the abyss. He hoped to catch a glimpse of the escaped, lone wolf by Labour Day, but his daily woodland treks generated no sightings.
On September 3rd, he got out of bed and put on his only good pants, bloodstains and all. The night before, it took him nearly an hour to iron his only good shirt, the same navy blue one Homer had worn in last year's school pictures.
Monday morning, it rained, and no one spoke to him as he entered the classroom. But every eye turned towards him. He hung his head, stared at the floor, and drew in his shoulders. It had been the same on the bus where the only seat available was next to Bernard Crowley, who had just kept on talking to Cocky Munro and refused to move his bookbag from the seat to make room, supposing Finton had been willing to sit there. Forced to stand, he bounced around between seats like a stringless kite on a breeze.
When the final bell rang, the Grade Ten teacher, Miss Snow, followed close behind him and shut the classroom door. The new teacher, who'd just finished her degree at Memorial earlier that year, was stern as she called the roll. Even in high heels, she was barely five feet tall and quite attractive. Now and then, some boys exchanged mirthful glances, but most students sat quietly, listening and brooding, or just biding their time.
Finton assumed a seat at the back of the room. Most of the people he knewâwho were familiar at least, if not actually friendsâhad landed in other homerooms. But there was one girl he recognized, sitting up front, near the big windows. She'd looked up and smiled as he entered, then lowered her head. Alicia Dredge wore the regulation blue polyester skirt and white, buttoned blouse, but with worn hems and faded hues. With her black army boots and knee-high socks, she looked like a homeless nun.
At recess, he sat by himself on the swings.
He hoped that school would somehow provide a distraction. He could no longer help his father, and his mother had gone out and gotten herself a part-time job at the liquor store. With his wife gone most days, Tom was mopier than ever. He usually sat around, did the occasional crossword, or wandered the meadow. Nanny Moon, as usual, had lost herself in the Bible. She rarely spoke, only looked up now and then, appearing as if she could speak great truths. Ultimately, however, she sighed and pulled her spectacles back on, then retreated to the comforts of the Good Book. Meanwhile, Finton hadn't seen Miss Bridie in weeks, and he was beginning to wonder about her health, physical or otherwise. Morgan had mostly withdrawn from the world, but he saw her occasionally on her way to a babysitting job or on her way to Bilch's or to Sellars' store. But it wasn't strange to go nearly a whole week without laying eyes on her. Perhaps she was merely attending to her increasingly reclusive mother.
“Miss Bridie's got cancer,” Elsie announced at supper one evening. The words might have contained a touch of sadness, and maybe deep inside, she felt some sympathy for her neighbour. But if either of those things were true, Elsie was careful not to show it. Finton had an idea of what having cancer meant. He'd heard of some people dying of it and others living with it. When he heard Miss Bridie had it, he assumed she would get better. But it did explain why he hadn't seen her in so long, especially now that he was no longer visiting Morgan on a regular basis.
After supper, he ran to the Battenhatch place, and Morgan answered the door.
“I heard she was sick,” he said.
“She doesn't want to see anyone. I'm sorry.” Morgan truly did look apologetic. In fact, she looked haggard, which Finton guessed was from spending too much time indoors, taking care of her mother.
“Tell her it's me,” he said. “She'll want to see me.”
“No.” She shook her head. “She said especially not to let you in.”
He argued with her, but, ultimately, he knew his efforts were useless. The Battenhatches were stubborn once they'd made up their minds.
After that evening, the couple of times he saw Morgan at the store or out walking, the conversation was awkward and brief. When she laughed, it was with a tinge of bitterness, and he always noticed the deepening of the lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth. Skeet Stuckey's parents, meanwhile, had ordered him to stay clear of the Moons and, though Skeet likely wouldn't obey them for long, at least for now Finton inhabited a new planet of solitude.
Of course, some people were native to this world of isolation. At recess, while the other children were hanging out together, gabbing excitedly or blending in, Alicia Dredge stood unaccompanied on the wooden school step, peering out across the rocky landscape. Clancy had been among those young people hired this past summer to lay sod on the school grounds, butâbetween the fights, the girl-watching, and the beer-swillingâthe job was incomplete. While patchy grass adorned the west side of the school, the east side was a moonscape, covered in boulders and gravel, pitted with shallow holes. Even the ground beneath Finton's swing was concave, and his soles couldn't quite reach the earth.
