The Slow Moon (4 page)

Six

J
OHNNY DID NOT
hear about Crow until his father called around noon on Sunday. Carl soft-pedaled the news. He urged Johnny to stay in the north Georgia woods to finish the course. Carl had helped finance the course for the school, though he did it mostly for Johnny. Carl had always worried more about Johnny than Crow.

“But I want to come home,” Johnny said.

“You can come home with the rest of the group,” Carl told him. “On Tuesday.”

“Why does Crow have to stay all night in jail?”

“We can’t post bail on Sunday, son. Don’t worry.”

“I want to see to him,” said Johnny.

“Wait until Tuesday.”

“I’m coming home,” Johnny insisted. “I’ll get somebody else to bring me home.”

“Okay,” said Carl. “I’ll come get you. If you have to leave, I’ll come.”

On a full moon in late July, Johnny came into this world, and Carl gathered his pride around him. He had the boy he wanted—though Helen had prayed for a girl.

“I carried this child so high,” Helen said. “I thought if I carried a baby high, it’d be a girl.” She couldn’t hide her disappointment.

With Crow’s birth, Carl hadn’t shown this much pride. He couldn’t help thinking how Crow had come from another man; and though he’d grown to love Crow as his own, had given Crow the family name, Johnny was his blood son.

“Look at him, Helen!” He was yelling. “Just look!” Carl held the red-splotched baby out to his wife. “I can’t believe it!”

The baby took Helen’s breast. His tiny mouth searched for a nipple and began to suck. Helen had not seen Carl this happy in years.

“Where’s Crow?” she asked.

“He’s with Louise and George. Antony wanted him to spend the night, so I said yes.”

“But I want to see him. I want Crow here.”

“C’mon, Helen,” Carl urged. “Let’s enjoy our son.”

Helen had never heard Carl refer to Crow in this way. He might say “son” or “your son,” but never “our” son. He’d been saving this phrase for the right moment. Helen felt sad for Carl, and sad for herself and Crow.

Johnny’s sweet breath and affable charm made him adored. As a baby he lay in bed for hours, not whining, his eyes open, satisfied with life.

Johnny belonged to them, clean and simple. Carl favored him without apology. But as Johnny grew older, Carl grew impatient with his son’s reluctance to play ball, or to engage in anything competitive. Johnny always preferred activities that kept him alone.

“When he goes to school,” said Carl, “I want things to be different.”

“They will be.” Helen tried to be reassuring.

Crow bought his brother some robots and a G.I. Joe, thinking his dad might approve of these toys. Johnny liked the G.I. Joe, but by the age of six he preferred to be with his mother in the kitchen.

“You’re turning him into a goddamn sissy, Helen.”

“Don’t say that.”

“I’ll say whatever I want.”

Johnny did love being near his mother. She spoke to him in a way that made him calm, secure. What he needed from her was her nearness, her presence around him. Even at six or seven, if she was in the kitchen, Johnny asked to help measure or stir whatever she was cooking. She pulled a kitchen chair to the stove so he could stand beside her, be almost her same height, and see what she was stirring.

“We’ll make fudge. Want to?”

Johnny nodded.

She showed him how to level a cup of sugar with a knife. He kept everything separate in white bowls, until she told him what to mix first, what to mix second.

The first time they made fudge he stuck his finger into the bowl of cocoa and the bitter taste on his tongue brought tears to his eyes. He thought he had somehow ruined the chocolate by putting his finger into the silky powder.

Helen explained that when sugar was added to the cocoa, it would taste the way he hoped. She pointed out to him the word
unsweetened
on the can, and the word seemed so large in his mind that he planned to mention it at school.

“Don’t tell Daddy we made fudge,” his mother said.

“Why not?”

“He doesn’t want you to be inside all the time.”

“I know. He thinks girls do this stuff.”

“Yes.”

“Did you want a girl instead of me?”

Helen stopped and wiped her hands on her apron. “No. Of course not.” Her balance became precarious. “
You
are what I wanted, exactly what I wanted.”

She lifted him up. He dangled a long spoon dripping chocolate onto the floor. Johnny squirmed because her fingers tickled his sides. When she put him back onto the chair, he stirred the bubbly mixture. He could not make his eyes leave the dark boiling liquid. He stirred, trying to calm the roiling, keep it from burning.

“I like to be here with you,” he said.

Helen didn’t know what to do about her love for Johnny. Looking at his face pricked her heart and made her insanely proud.

Johnny’s favorite moment was folding a tablespoon of butter into the chocolate as it cooled, seeing the yellowy clump dissolve into the chocolate mixture. He swished the yellow around, making concentric designs, until the butter had disappeared. They waited for the fudge to cool; then his mother began to beat it. Johnny liked the flopping sound of the spoon against the thickening chocolate. To him, it was the sound of making fudge.

His mother let him pour the fudge onto a white platter. Later he would cut the candy into small pieces and pile them into a high design on the same plate.

One night, after Johnny’s eighth birthday, Carl suggested that Johnny go off to summer camp.

“Some of the guys at the mill say their sons go away to a camp in the North Carolina mountains. They have competitions and give trophies at the end. Hell, they say everybody wins at least three ribbons. I think it’d be good for him.”

“How long would he be gone?”

“There you go, Helen. See? You hold on too tight.”

“How long, Carl?”

“Eight weeks.”

“Four.”

“Six then. Eight next year.”

“Let’s see if he likes it.”

So at age eight Johnny went to Camp Cherokee. As he packed to leave, he insisted on taking some books and a sketch pad to draw plants and birds.

Carl objected. “Listen, son, you’re not going to have time to do any of that stuff. If you take it, you’ll just go off by yourself. Why do you think we’re sending you?”

“I still want to take it, just in case,” Johnny said. “I’ll do all the other stuff too, Dad.”

“Suit yourself.” Carl acquiesced. Everything about Johnny looked like Carl. Their hair, arms, and walk were identical, but their temperaments were markedly different. Carl wanted Johnny to be more like himself, more like Crow. He worried about Johnny’s ability to fight for himself. The idea that anything might happen to him made his knees weak.

On the day Johnny left for camp, Carl sent him off with a hale and hearty goodbye, waving largely from the yard. Then he went back into the house and closed his study door. Johnny could see his father’s head on his desk before riding off on the camp bus.

He called to his mother. “Tell Dad I’ll be all right,” he said. Helen nodded, waving.

Johnny felt that he had two selves: one outside and another moving beneath his skin. Whenever he remembered the inside boy, as he liked to call him, his heart and chest throbbed with delight, but the outside boy could not follow the clues given from his heart. His outside self always seemed to be walking down strange streets, seeing odd Stop signs.

On Sunday night when Carl picked up Johnny from the survival trip, he continued to downplay the seriousness of Crow’s ordeal. He said only that Sophie Chabot had been hurt. He did not mention that she was in the hospital.

Johnny felt the worry in his father’s voice and could not imagine why it was more important for him to climb a rope and spend another night with a group of guys than to come home when things seemed bad.

“Why do you treat me like a mental case?” Johnny asked.

“I don’t. I don’t do that.”

“You worry about me because I’m not like you.”

“I just worry.” Carl’s voice had an edge.

“I won’t break just because I’m different,” he said. “I’m doing it all, Dad. I’m hiking, rope climbing, camping out all night, getting bit by mosquitoes, the whole bit. I’m keeping a journal. You can read about it.”

Carl didn’t know what to say to this son. He had always wanted to make Johnny more like him and Crow—but now he wasn’t sure exactly what Crow had done, and though he knew how to apply pressure where it could be felt, he wasn’t sure if he could get Crow out of this trouble.

“I’ll be all right,” said Johnny, trying to be adaptable.

Sometimes, in Johnny’s dreams, an animal figure appeared, small and birdlike. He recognized the gentleness of the figure; but he knew, even in the dream, that this creature would not have an easy life.

Seven

W
HEN
S
OPHIE
C
HABOT
awoke in the woods, her underpants felt cold and the voice she heard did not sound like her own. She had awakened several times already, falling back into a haze. Somebody was putting clothes on her, covering her. Once she had heard Crow’s voice calling to her. She had seen him. Was it Crow? She knew she was hurt.

A male and a female police officer leaned over her. “Don’t you worry,” the man’s voice said. And the woman officer kept telling her, “You’re all right now. We’re getting you to the emergency room.”

Sophie was told later that when she saw the two police officers, she began to scream and did not cease screaming until the doctor tranquilized her. She didn’t remember making any noises.

When she awoke those times in the woods, striations of light fell through the trees. Was it light from the moon? The ground was wet and she felt rocks beneath her back. Her leg felt numb and she kept thinking that she had been in an accident. She wondered if she was paralyzed.

She knew that when Crow had kissed her, a wave of something (was it love?) had risen in her chest. She couldn’t speak. Even the first time she had seen Crow in town with his friends, she felt a turn inside her, a small whirling that kept on returning. Before she even knew his name, she knew he was somebody she wanted to be with, and she began to sketch his face in her notebook.

Sophie hadn’t believed Crow would ask her out, since she was two grades below him. But he had, and for a month now he had walked everywhere with her. In the cafeteria he sought her out, he walked her to classes, and after school he drove her home, or to town. When someone teased him about her, he made a noise through his nose.

“
You
wish!” he said.

Tonight had been Sophie’s idea. She hoped they could go off somewhere alone, and when they got to the party, she suggested they go out behind the house. They took a blanket.

In the woods Crow touched Sophie, and when he did, she told him to lie down on the leaves with her. He hesitated.

Sophie had been instructed by other girls about ways to touch a boy, ways to kiss. Since she had arrived in South Pittsburg in January, Nikki and Stephanie stayed close to her, making her their good friend. They were both juniors and didn’t usually hang around with younger students, but Sophie’s unusual beauty made her popular with the older boys. Her large dark eyes always looked wet. She was competition, even though she was young, so the girls befriended her, instructed her, told her whom to date.

Sophie touched Crow through his pants. She had thought about this night so many times in her room—imagining how she would make him love her. In her mind he told her he loved her, said she was beautiful. In her mind he came unraveled with love. She had not thought she would let him enter her, but their kissing lifted to a pitch of desire she hadn’t expected to reach.

When Crow tried to go inside her, she urged, “Not all the way.” She was trying to be careful.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay.” But they went too far and she told him to stop. He was breathing hard and didn’t hear her, then when he heard her he pulled out.

“I came a little bit,” he told her. “I don’t know if…”

“Do you have something?” she asked. And he remembered he had left the condoms in the car.

“I’ll be right back,” he said and got up, pulled on his underwear. She laughed.

“You’re going like that?”

“It’s not far,” and he ran off.

Sophie covered herself with Crow’s shirt. She watched him disappear and heard the crunching of his feet evaporate. Night sounds filled the woods, leaves rustling. She heard some voices, but they seemed to be coming from the house. “Crow?” she said. “That you?” Then she saw them, or the shadow of them.

A heavy darkness clung to the uneven surface of their faces. They looked craggy, mountainous. One cursed under his breath and another stood back, in the shadows of the trees. A word or sound passed between them. A direct word, then a quiver around the mouth, a flinch at something rooted, or unrooted, between them.

Sophie didn’t remember the exact moment or exactly what happened, but as someone fell on her—wrapping the shirt around her head, knees hitting the ground beside her—another held her down. No one spoke. The only sounds Sophie heard were feet shuffling to get into position, and a tiny distant humming in her head that promised to take her far off from this moment.

She jerked suddenly, trying to push someone off; but he clamped down harder, holding her with his legs and knees. He held her arms flat on the ground. She heard his breathing. She heard her own voice calling to Crow, but the shirt was pushed tightly around her mouth so that her voice was muffled. She wanted for Crow to come back, to fight them, to pull them off.

“Please,” she cried. “Please, don’t!” Her voice sounded dry. She could barely hear herself. She felt the blanket beneath her. Her bra lay beside her head. Then she felt someone inside her, pushing. She struggled, then grew still, extremely still. She felt dizzy, wishing her dizziness might dim the pain.

Someone jumped up, and another was on her. He made a sound but she didn’t feel him enter her. She didn’t feel anything, though he made sounds as if he enjoyed what he was doing. She tried to beg him to stop when someone jerked her head and cut her neck against a rock. When the last one pressed himself against her, he put his head next to hers and whispered words she didn’t understand. She felt stickiness between her legs. She was stinging and something deeper inside felt ripped.

This last one had long hair that fell in her face. She could feel its heaviness even through the shirt that smothered her—strings on her forehead and cheeks. She tried to get up. She tried to lift herself, but he knocked her down. Then he went in, tearing her more. She kicked, but any movement hurt, so again she lay still. Then gratefully she went unconscious.

Sophie woke finally, completely, hours later in the hospital room. Just before she woke she felt her mother’s hands bathing her arms and legs with a soft, soapy rag. She heard the nurse, Louise Burden, speaking.

“Has she said anything yet?” Louise asked.

“No,” said Rita.

Louise, the head nurse at the Marion County Hospital emergency room, had treated most of the white kids in town. She knew them as well as she knew the blacks. Louise had always been friendly to white people. She nursed their children through strep throat, broken arms, pinkeye, stomach pains, influenza. And as they grew older she helped them through alcohol abuse and what she called “frying their brains with drugs.”

“You think this was somebody she knows?” Louise asked.

Rita couldn’t answer. She’d been sitting at her daughter’s side for hours. She hadn’t eaten or slept. She shivered involuntarily, then saw Sophie’s eyes open.

“Shhh,” Rita said. She stood, leaning. Louise and Rita both leaned, as if they were looking into a deep hole.

Sophie could not discern their words, but their faces hung like fruit, like something able to nourish. She closed her eyes and began to tremble, every nerve and vessel shivering.

“She’s back in the world,” said Louise, placing two fingers on the pulse at her wrist. “If she’s trembling, she’s back in this world.”