There's Blood on the Moon Tonight (10 page)

Except for a nervous glance her way, when Betty Anne first climbed into his truck, Ham barely acknowledged her presence. Not even after picking up Rusty and Shayna, both of whom crammed into the front seat beside them, forcing Betty Anne to slide right next to her blushing date. In fact, Ham didn’t say a word until he’d backed up the truck into a slot at the drive-in, whereupon Joe Rusty and Shayna hopped out and jumped into the bed of the pick up, the movie being the last thing on
their
minds. The Moonlite Drive-In had opened the previous summer, and was the only spot in town where the young people could hang out with their parents’ blessings—the other two locations being notorious lovers’ lanes. The owner, grumpy old Mr. Grimes, didn’t take into account the scarcity of cars on Moon, but the islanders had made do.

Ham looked around at all of the blankets laid out in the large lot. There was an unspoken rule at the Drive-In: Couples laid their blankets on the left side of the field, families the right. A playground in the center was the Mason-Dixon line. Ham parked on the left.

“Can I get you some popcorn, Betty Anne?”
Ham had asked his date, finally getting up the courage to speak, even though he still couldn’t look her in the eyes. In a bold move, he’d parked facing the snack stand. Like his pal Joe Rusty, Ham had no interest in watching the picture show.

If Betty Anne noticed, she didn’t seem to mind.

She put one finger under Ham’s chin and lifted his head until their eyes locked. He melted under the soft gaze of those honey brown eyes, falling head over heels in love at that instant.
“A Coke and a smile would be kinda nice, too,”
she’d purred in return.

One year later, Ham and Joe Rusty were doing yet another thing together: walking down the aisle with their best girls on the very same day.

Joe Rusty’s wedding was first, and Ham was of course his Best Man—Betty Anne, Shayna’s Maid of Honor. Then, after a quick change, Rusty and Shayna returned the favors, escorting their friends to the front of the church, where the Reverend Milo Tipple waited to unite them in Holy Matrimony. Sometime after the wedding Betty Anne’s parents, who had given their happiest blessings to the union, sold their home on the West End, and retired to a senior citizen community in Arizona.

They’d both since passed away.

Jessie Huggins, never a fellow to throw around his money, made the Moon Island grapevine buzz like seldom before when he gave his son a brand new shrimp boat, almost twice as big as the
Moon Maiden,
the paint on her lovely bow still wet. For Joe Rusty O’Hara, who Jessie and Reva had come to think of as a second son, they had deeded over the house his family had been renting for nearly twenty years. Rusty’s mother had passed away the previous summer, his dad when he was just fourteen, so the present of the home, from a man he respected more than any other, touched him very deeply. Rusty promised Jessie Huggins that as long as he lived he’d never let any harm befall his son. And Joe Rusty was as good as his word.

The first time Rusty O’Hara saved Ham’s life was on a day you’d least expect for such theatrics. It was a calm spring morning. The sea as flat as Lizard Lake back home on Moon. Rusty had the wheel, while Ham hoisted in the catch. He emptied the net of its bounty on the deck and prepared to separate the flotsam of the sea from the shrimp and money fish. They employed no other mates, so they often did the work of four men, on what was the biggest shrimp boat in Beaufort County.

Ham had taken over his dad’s old spot on the Beaufort docks, right beside the very same rednecks who’d once taunted Jessie—now over a year in his grave. God rest his soul. Buried right beside his beloved Reva, in Moon’s only cemetery, deep in the heart of the piney woods. Nobody dared kick any of
his
catch back into the drink! For as Ham liked to say, when driven to anger:
“Hear me well! I ain’t half the Christian my daddy was! I ain’t got but one cheek to turn and I
won’t
be turning it for the likes of you!”

              Ham, usually a cautious man, was thinking on this curious turn of events instead of the job at hand when calamity struck. Unaware that a line had coiled around his ankle, he dropped the huge net back into the drink—only to find himself being dragged right along after it.

It happened so fast Ham didn’t even have a chance to call out for help. Just enough time to hold his breath before the Atlantic swallowed him whole.

He tried untangling his foot but it was no use. If the boat had been idle he might have stood a chance, but with the line pulled tight from the surging seas
,
Ham couldn’t make any headway with the knot.

As the heavy net sank ever lower into the briny depths, the light coming from the surface dimmed…

Ham couldn’t recall how he got back on the deck of the
Betty Anne.
By then he was already technically dead.

The first thing Ham saw when he came to was the worried face of Joe Rusty, looking down at him.

Despite the fact he hadn’t witnessed Rusty’s heroics, nor would his friend talk about it in any detail (
It was nothin’, Hambone. I didn’t see you on deck, and I just got a feeling. So I pulled up the net, pushed some salt water out your lungs, and here you are, boyo! Easy peasy, teasy squeezey),
Ham could still picture it just as clear as day.

The second time Joe Rusty saved Ham’s life the Atlantic was showing a lot more attitude. The morning run from the docks of Beaufort had been mild and uneventful. Not so their return trip. The blue bitch showed her nasty side without warning. The clouds above her head turning black in the wink of an eye. With the violent crash of a lightning bolt, rain pelted horizontally into the windshield of the
Betty Anne’s
wheelhouse. Rusty fought the sudden heavy seas at the wheel, while Ham radioed his wife to let her know they would be late getting home. He told Betty Anne to pass the on news to Shayna O’Hara.

He was racking the radio’s mike, when through the windshield he saw a line had given way on their crab traps. Three of the wooden traps skittered wildly across the deck, hit the port side, and flipped overboard. The rest were a wave away from following them over the side.

“Leave ‘em be, Hambone!”
Rusty had shouted, even as his thickheaded friend was heading out the hatch.

The crab traps weren’t more than six bucks apiece of wood, chicken wire and galvanized nails; but Ham, like his daddy before him, couldn’t bear to part with any of his hard-earned money. Neglecting to tie a safety line on, he dashed out on deck and grabbed the last two traps before they could skitter overboard.

He was holding them up triumphantly for Rusty to see, when a large comber hit the boat broadside.

Everything not tied down on deck, including Samuel J. Huggins, was washed overboard.

Once again, Ham ended up comatose before he could witness Rusty O’Hara’s heroics. And once again, his stalwart friend refused to speak of it. This go-around Ham couldn’t picture the details of the improbable rescue.

The last thing he recalled was hitting the water a half second before one of those traitorous traps conked him on the head. He awoke to find himself on the floor of the wheelhouse, while Joe Rusty, soaked to the bone, called in the Coast Guard. It turned out the air rescue had been unnecessary. But Joe Rusty, damn his freckled hide, had insisted on it anyway.

They lifted Ham Huggins up to the helicopter in a body basket and flew him to the Beaufort Hospital. To this day, Ham had no idea how his friend pulled the rescue off.

             
              *******

Ham Huggins dropped the newspaper,
The Beaufort Gazette,
on top of his empty plate and caught Rusty staring at him. “Somethin’ on your mind, son?”

  “I was just thinking about Mr. O’Hara.”

Ham’s lined face grew pensive at the mention of his late friend. It had been almost eight years since Joe Rusty had fallen overboard. On that occasion there would be no heroics, even though Ham stayed out for ten straight days looking for him, going in only for gas and oil, the occasional sandwich and coffee. He’d kept his eyes pealed for that ridiculous floppy white hat Rusty always wore when working on deck, but it had disappeared, right along with its intrepid owner. He’d kept at it twice as long as the Coast Guard, and three times as long as common sense dictated (with the cool temps that week, hypothermia would have killed Joe Rusty within hours).

Unlike those events when he’d fallen over the side, Ham never saw or heard Joe Rusty go overboard. Didn’t even have an inkling. His friend had simply vanished without a trace. It was his daddy all over again, and the guilt nearly killed Ham. That was a dark period in the Huggins’s household. Even worse for the O’Haras’ next door. In one fell swoop, they’d lost a husband, a provider, and a
much beloved father.

Rusty saw his dad rubbing the silver porpoise pendant around his neck. The very same one Joe Rusty had given him for his eighth birthday. He’d bought it special for Ham at a tourist trap called
The Gay Dolphin
in Myrtle Beach. His daddy always did that whenever he had Joe Rusty on his mind. Rubbed that grinning thing as if it would bring his best friend back…

Rusty wondered if his dad was even aware of it.

Ham smiled a bittersweet smile, recalling how damn silly Joe Rusty looked arriving at work each day. The man had this bright, curly red hair. Like doll’s hair, it was. Not to mention the palest skin Ham had ever seen on any fisherman! Rusty would slather on the strongest sun block he could find, painting himself even whiter than he already was. A man with skin like that, freckled from head to toe as he was, had no business making a living out in the cruel southern sun. Joe Rusty was a bit of a prude, too. A peculiarity for a man working in such a rough trade. Joe didn’t like to talk “vulgar”, as he used to put it. Had his own language for such matters. He referred to someone’s ass as a “teasy”, and a fart was a “fuus”. A man’s dick went by “hooey”, and a woman’s pussy was a “dewy”.

And speaking of language, Joe Rusty had the most charming Irish brogue! A lilting way of talking that instantly put you at ease. He’d come by the accent honestly, from his “dear old mum and da”, as he called them. Passed it on to his daughter, too, before he died. The girl hanging on to her father’s every word back in those days.

His folks had emigrated from Ireland when they were in their teens, living in Maine for a brief time, before finding their way down to Beaufort, where their son Joe was born in 1962. Like the Huggins’s, they’d only borne the one child. A fisherman by trade, Mr. O’Hara met Jessie Huggins on the Beaufort docks. A fortuitous meeting, that. For it was in that timeframe when Jessie Huggins first started renting property on his island.

With their wee son, Joe, the same age as his Sam back home, Jessie had just the property in mind for the O’Haras’. Right next door to his. Now his boy would have someone his own age to play with! He just hoped Joe would someday learn to speak some American. He could barely make out what that Mr. O’Hara was saying!

As it turned out, the passage of time didn’t make the O’Haras’ any easier to understand. Except for Joe Rusty—who, at his full height, six-feet-two-inches tall, would someday tower over his tiny parents—no one on the island could understand what the chirpy Irish couple was saying.

No, not even Ham.

Ham chuckled, remembering how he used to expect them to start dancing some kind of merry Irish jig. Like that cartoon leprechaun in the cereal commercial. 

Those were some sweet, sweet people, the O’Haras. Hard working, too! My Lord, they could work!

Like Ham’s own dad, Mr. O’Hara worked himself into an early grave. No wonder then Joe Rusty grew to be the man he was—
the finest friend I’ve ever known.

“I sure do miss that red headed rascal,” Ham said, taking his lunch pail from his wife. “His tiny old mum and da, too.” He kissed Rusty’s forehead and patted Betty Anne on her pretty backside, as he headed out to work again. A little bit sadder than when he’d come in. After Joe Rusty, Ham didn’t take on any more partners. Just mates who worked for him; called him “Sir” on board, “Ham” on shore. That’s just the way Ham wanted it, too. That is, until his son was old enough to come on board full time.

Rusty watched his dad leave through the back door, then turned to his mother. She was looking out the kitchen window, waiting for her husband to pass, her usually smooth brow wrinkled in concern. “I’m sorry, Mom,” Rusty said, pushing his chair back. “I didn’t mean to make Daddy sad. It’s just…I sometimes think about my namesake. The way Dad talks about him, makes the guy sound like a superhero or something.”

Betty Anne looked down at her son. A smile had already returned to her face. “That Joe Rusty was something else, all right. Wasn’t for him, you and I’d be making do on our own. But don’t you worry about your father,” she said. Her voice was clipped and well educated. Betty Anne, unlike most of her peers, had gone on to high school in Beaufort. Along with poor Mrs. Brown, she had been instrumental in bringing a twelve-year school to the island. “Your daddy always gets droopy this time of year. The date of Joe Rusty’s passing is coming up, you know.”

“I know,” Rusty said, looking in the direction of the O’Haras’. “I wonder…”