Iona Moon (28 page)

“They said they'd give him another chance,” Horton said. He was both humble and proud, too shy to look at his own son.

Willy knew his ironic god would punish him, but had never guessed how swift and simple the blow would be.

Alone in his room, he gazed out the window, at the snow falling on the street and on the lawn, on all the lawns as far as he could see. Would Matthew learn to talk again, get a job, make his parents glad—or would he take his mother's car for another joy ride and end up in the river? Maybe he'd set the drapes ablaze—one more time—light the whole goddamn house some night while his mother and father slept, forever safe in their beds upstairs. Sometimes the object itself forces you to act. A knife demands to cut: to whittle a stick or open a fish, to stab the dirt or draw blood from your own thumb. Perhaps that's how it was with Matt Fry. The river called and the car answered. The match said:
Strike me
, and the curtains said:
I want to burn
.

The next morning, Willy took a drive out to the Frys' place. He remembered how Clifford Fry had boarded up the basement windows years before to keep the boy from breaking into his own house. Now the boards were gone. The Frys put Everett in the attic. This time they took the opposite approach.
The dark is merciful
. Willy wondered about the room downstairs. If a child cried out in his sleep, would his parents hear?

He drove slowly but didn't stop. The snow was melting, and it had started to rain. Ruts of the road ran with muddy water.

The dark is merciful
. A lie. The dark leaves its own memories, more powerful because you cannot see: flowers crushed in a sweaty palm, a woman's perfume, the taste of cognac in his own mouth, the taste of it in hers.

And the dark made its own claims. That night, long after his trip to the Flats and hours after he was off duty, Willy Hamilton found himself turning down Willow Glen Road. If he'd known what he wanted, he might have had the courage to stop. But he wasn't even sure who he wanted to see. He imagined himself burying his face between Delores Tyler's soft breasts, begging her for another chance. He saw himself running up the stairs, pounding on Jay's door, telling him to get up off the goddamn bed and start living his life. He knew he couldn't do both, so he did nothing at all.

He thought he had been braver as a child. At least he could act. Once he heaved a stone, broke a school window. Because he wanted to do it. Because the window said:
Break me
. Terror thrilled him. He'd made this—not a sculpture but a hole, still undeniably and completely his. The alarm sent him reeling, and he ran faster than he'd ever run, faster than he could run today. When he heard the wail of his father's siren, his heart seemed to stutter, off beat; he didn't know if he was wild with happiness or fear.

Hunched under the covers of his bed, Willy thought of Delores, how surprised he was when she lay down and her breasts flattened, turning loose and flabby, not at all as he had pictured them. Her body scared him; he didn't know why.

None of Willy's imaginings could bring him close to the thoughts of a woman. How could he guess that she waited for him to come again. How could he know her shame, how it hurt her to think of taking off her clothes in front of him, how the difference between them was a cruelty he did not mean to inflict, how his lean body reminded her of all the things she could never be and never have. She touched her own scarred belly, her fat thighs, her white dimpled buttocks. How could she ever bear to let him see. No, if it happened again, it would be exactly as it was the first time. They would be in a car by the river. She would hike up her skirt and pull down her pantyhose. No man would ever gaze at her, full of longing, while they made love in a rose-lit room.

One day passed and then another. He drove by her house. She stood at the window. She saw him, but he did not stop. It snowed again. His headlights carved a pair of yellow tunnels in the street.

The calls started a week later. At first he only breathed while she said, “Hello.
Hello?
” The third time he called, she said, “Willy, is that you?”

He hung up and thought about the kind of girlfriend he wanted, one with smooth skin and silky hair, a girl with a nice smell who would sit beside him at the movies and hold his hand, a girl who would be afraid of men on the screen but not of him. He wanted this girl to kiss him passionately in his car by the river, her tongue exploring his mouth, her body arching against his until he grew hard and she said:
That's enough
.

The girl he dreamed had round cheeks and big eyes, a small nose and pretty little mouth. Her eyebrows were high and light. She was fair, not necessarily blond, but pale. She didn't look like anyone in particular, and Willy realized that the face was childlike, unformed. As soon as it began to take on more definite lines, the fantasy dissipated and the girl said things he didn't want to hear:
Don't worry, baby. It's always like this the first time
. She kept a flask in her purse and drank too much. She moved from shadow to light, and he saw that her face was lined and the skin beneath her eyes was so dark it looked bruised. She unbuttoned her own blouse. No one said:
That's enough
.

He didn't call for two days. On the third day, he rang. She said, “Hello,” and he said, “Are you alone?” Just like that, an obscene caller without a name. She knew him, knew what he wanted, not like the little girl in his fantasy who didn't know anything, who could always say
no
. “Do you want to come over?” He was nodding. “Willy?” He realized she couldn't see him. “
Yes,
” he said. “Then come.”

She'd fixed herself up, lipstick and blush, yellow hair pulled back and pinned in a French knot. It had been a long time since he'd seen her in daylight. “You look nice,” he said, and it was true.

In the car, he asked her where she wanted to go. She answered quickly; everything had been decided. He wondered how this had happened and if he should be afraid, but he drove west, toward South Bend, just as she said.

He said, “Shall we have lunch?” And she said, “I know why you called.” He waited. “It's only fifteen dollars.” For a moment he thought she meant he'd have to pay. “For a room,” she said.

Until now his worst crimes had come from trying to be too good. He remembered fourth grade, how he tattled on Roy Wilkerson when he saw the older boy copy from his spelling test. And Roy was punished by Mrs. Finch, struck on both palms with a ruler, as if the hands themselves were bad. Willy watched the fat, sobbing boy, feeling every blow in his own body but still believing he'd done the right thing.

What he was doing now was wrong. He thought of Iona, what she wanted, what she tried to make him do. He saw that this was God's punishment for the pious, to give him the desire he'd judged most harshly.

His first silent call had set this in motion, and now he couldn't stop—they were here, climbing three flights of stairs at the South Bend Hotel, putting the key in the lock, opening the door. He knew what Flo said, that God heard only silence and hushed words. It was too late to pray nothing would happen, so he prayed to be kind.

The day was overcast, already dark, but Delores pulled the blinds. She'd brought a candle. Stains on the bedspread, dirt on the rug, in this flickering light almost invisible.
Merciful
. She pulled the pins from her knotted hair and shook it loose. When he sat beside her on the bed, they kissed, lightly—there was time now. She took off her coat and he reached under her sweater. Her camisole was satiny, smooth as skin over skin.

She touched his shoulders and his arms.
Beautiful boy
, she said, and the words shocked him. She told him to take off his clothes, and he stood before her, completely naked, unashamed for the first time—because he was beautiful; in her eyes, he was. She guided him to parts of his body he'd barely known, arch of the foot and inner thigh, the delicate space between each finger, the hollow between each rib—he came too fast but grew hard again and was amazed when he moved inside of her, so warm there, so different from his own hand; nothing had ever felt like this. And he was surprised by his own tenderness, his longing—a desperation to make her feel what he felt.

She still wore the red camisole, afraid her belly would frighten him, ashamed to think her breasts might remind him of the vast gulf of age between them. He felt too good to her, a sting, flesh on flesh, the long muscles of his legs, tongue in her mouth, fingers in her hair, the bones of his hips pressing into her, an imprint she would feel for days. She didn't want to scream, didn't want her face to contort or turn a brilliant red, so she held herself back and still she came, a ripple of small shocks that racked her body. It had been so long since anyone had made her come—she wanted to weep with gratefulness.

He came a moment after her, thrusting hard. The second orgasm left him limp, exhausted. He curled around her, one leg over hers, soft cock nuzzling her thigh, face pressed to her neck under her damp hair.

The candle flickered out while they slept. They woke in darkness and made love again, but the afternoon was wearing on and they were both thinking of the night. He strained to come quickly, to be done with it. He heard Mrs. Stiles say:
An animal act
, and thought of the old woman's dry hands, the ropes of blue veins, how her hot blood seemed to leap into his body where she touched him. His hands pressed the sheet as he moved against the woman in this bed. He did not kiss her or look at her. He thought only of himself, of his own breath, the way that sound filled the room.

Delores showered alone, and Willy lay on the bed, listening to the water. He smelled her now, on him, and wished he had been the first to wash.

While Willy was in the bathroom, Delores turned on the light to gather up her clothes. He found her that way, on her knees, white rump in the air, looking under the bed. They dressed quickly and slipped out the back entrance of the hotel, their hair still wet.

In the car on the way back to White Falls, they had nothing to say. He parked in front of her house, hoping she would climb out quickly. “Call me,” she said.

Willy drummed the steering wheel with his fingers. “Sure,” he said, “of course.”

Driving home, he thought of the welts on Roy Wilkerson's palms and wished he could kneel now to take those blows.

18

Iona stared at the stain on the ceiling. It opened and spread, the shape of a womb, dark as dried blood. The man upstairs was vacuuming again. She thought of him, moments before, lying on his bed, fighting down his urge the same way she fought hers. Muscles tightened around his ribs. His breath came fast and shallow. He had already swept the floor, dusted the windowsill, vacuumed the rug. Panic rose in him like a hand inside his chest, reaching up, a fist in his throat. He peeked under the bed, crawled to the dresser, ran his finger along the ledge of the frame above the closet door.
Yes, dirty
. Now the frenzy began.

The wheels of the little machine rolled across Iona's ceiling. She pressed her pillow to her ears, but it was too late. The legless doll sat in her chair peering at Iona with her one good eye. Seven o'clock, four hours to kill before she had to relieve Stanley. She hated it when the doll looked at her that way. It still wore the red T-shirt, tied in a knot over the holes in the torso. All her money was stuffed inside, crumpled bills wadded together. She no longer cared how much there was. Enough, she thought, enough to get away.

Later Iona saw that the kids had started a bonfire in the vacant lot. She stood at her window, watching the flames lick higher and higher. Soon the fire trucks would come to douse the weeds, but for now the kids were dancing in a circle, stamping and shouting. One boy waved a burning stick, painting a fire, sculpting a blaze. Sirens howled in the distance. By the time she left for work, the black grass was wet, beaten flat, the street deserted.

Alice visited Eddie in the middle of the night, brought him a bag of food as she had every night since the arrest. She never got out of the car. Iona saw the big head, wide shoulders, one pale hand holding the paper sack. It was easy to imagine the rest: wide feet cramped in a pair of pumps, thick legs, big-boned Alice, full breasts and full belly.

Eddie was getting a bit of a paunch himself, eating that extra meal, sandwiches and apples, boxes of raisins, slices of pie. Iona remembered how he'd felt his whole leg in bed with her, the lost calf, the knee that still bent, warmth of blood all the way to his toes. He said:
This never lasts
. Iona understood how a man could stay away from her—but his own leg, how could he abandon that?

She imagined him growing huge and round, swelling with his wife's food. They'd lie on top of each other, Eddie and Alice, too bloated to move, hopelessly separated by the humps of their stomachs.

Iona wanted to eat herself numb. She stole a box of cereal, a quart of milk. Alone, in her room, she found it difficult to chew, nearly impossible to swallow. The first bite was good, the second disappointing. The third bite exhausted her, and she set the bowl on the floor.

One night she climbed a tree to see in a window of the house with stone lions. The mother brushed her daughter's hair, slowly, tenderly. Iona thought of Hannah, yanking her hair, pulling it tight to snip it close to the scalp.
I
know where you got this, Iona
. She remembered standing in front of Jay Tyler's house, late fall; the trees were bare, the grass yellow, matted and muddy from a snow that had melted. She didn't want to see Hannah's hair, but she did, brittle yellow strands wound in the brush. Still the woman brushed her child's hair, fifty strokes, a hundred. People didn't die in houses like these. They went to hospitals and died in rooms with white sheets and white walls. No daughter here wiped her mother's bottom or stripped her mother's bed. No girl ever stood in an empty room and whispered:
Where is she?
She wished the kids from her block would build a bonfire in this yard, that the flames would rage, devouring wood and paint, curtains and piano; she longed to hear the pop of glass and a child who was not herself screaming.