by Jim Dodge
The most memorable lesson for both Daniel and Annalee occurred on a warm May afternoon. All three of them were cleaning the pantry, item number nine on Annalee’s list of spring chores, when the sky suddenly darkened with a mass of clouds. Within minutes rain began falling. Johnny Seven Moons went to the open door, inhaled deeply, and started stripping off his clothes. Daniel and Annalee exchanged anxious glances. ‘You going swimming?’ Daniel joked.
‘No,’ Seven Moons said, hopping out of his pants and tossing them aside, ‘I’m going for a walk in the warm spring rain. Join me if you like. Walking naked in warm spring rain is one of the highest spiritual pleasures available to human creatures.’
Annalee was already wiggling out of her jeans, but Daniel had a question: ‘Is it a higher pleasure than blowing up dams?’
Seven Moons shut his eyes and almost immediately opened them. ‘That’s a tough one, but I think they’d have to be the same. You see, if I didn’t blow up dams and keep rivers where they’re supposed to be, in not very long there would be no warm spring rain to walk naked in.’
It was splendid. Hands joined, Daniel in the middle, they walked naked across the flat and up the oak-studded knoll where, deliriously drenched, they sang ‘Old Man River’ to the clearing sky. The sun burned through minutes later. By the time they walked back to the house through the wraiths of mist lifting from the soaked grass, everything but their feet and hair had dried.
Annalee and Daniel recalled that walk with Seven Moons often, but they never talked about what had really moved them. Annalee had been so overwhelmed by the rain on her flesh that she was afraid she was going to come, to collapse in the wet grass. She felt constrained. It was difficult to shift her attention away from her body and back to them, even though they brought their own sweet joy.
Daniel remembered a moment as they’d started up the knoll, when he looked at his mother, so beautiful, her skin shining with rain, and then he’d looked at Seven Moons, strong and wise and brave, feeling their large hands in his and the rain splattering on his shoulders, feeling for just a moment that the world was perfect.
They both remembered yet never mentioned what Johnny Seven Moons had said when they reached the top of the knoll. He’d tilted his head back and groaned out, ‘Oh, blowing up dams is a tremendous responsibility, an important responsibility, a grave responsibility …’ And then he’d laughed like a loon, the sound echoing distantly across the flat and then lost in the hush of rain. He squeezed Daniel’s hand and grinned at Annalee. ‘It’s only at moments like this that I’m glad we’re all going to die.’
Seven Moons stayed seven months that first time, and visited for a week or two about four times a year after that. When eight months had passed since his last visit, Daniel began to worry.
When Smiling Jack showed up a month late for Christmas, Daniel asked if Seven Moons was back in prison. Smiling Jack didn’t know, but promised he’d check on Seven Moons’ whereabouts as soon as he had the chance. He cautioned Daniel it might take a while since Seven Moons wandered as he pleased – no phone, no address. Since Smiling Jack’s colossal tardiness was the result of a similar temperament, Daniel didn’t expect a speedy reply. A week after Jack’s departure, there was a letter in the P. O. box when they went into town for supplies. Smiling Jack said Seven Moons was staying near Gaulala taking care of his mother, who’d been very sick but was getting better, yet he probably wouldn’t get away until the fall. Without reason, Daniel was convinced he would never see Seven Moons again. When Annalee, concerned by his sudden and uncharacteristic moping, finally coaxed out his secret conviction, she suggested that he go visit Seven Moons in the spring.
Annalee was glad to help Daniel arrange the visit, which she hoped would last through the summer. If it could be worked out, then she’d ask Smiling Jack for a three-month vacation. She needed some unclaimed time. Running the safe house, while never unpleasant, had become increasingly boring. Daniel, with his sweet hunger for information and action, was inspiring, but he was also exhausting, and the random appearance of guests made it even more difficult for her to find and sustain a psychic rhythm of her own, an undistracted sense of herself. Annalee was particularly troubled by the recent onset of sexual desire for her son. She wasn’t sure if the desire was simply a convenient focus for the heightened eroticism that had begun with the walk in the rain or whether it was something specific between them, or between all mothers and sons at Daniel’s age, whirling in that prepubescent blur between boy and man. It didn’t help that he was tall, lanky, blue-eyed and fine-spirited. Lately, the sight of him naked unsettled and confused her. Not that she would ever act on the desire. So it wasn’t the fear of succumbing to temptation that bothered her so much as the distraction of dealing with it, and that’s why she was so eager to send Daniel off to Seven Moons’ summer camp that she used the location phone to leave Smiling Jack a message to get in touch as soon as possible.
She shouldn’t have bothered. When she and Daniel returned from San Francisco that night, Smiling Jack smiled at them from the kitchen table when they walked in. With him was a new guest, the first Jack had ever delivered, a striking man in his mid-thirties named Shamus Malloy. And everything changed.
Shamus Malloy was a professional smuggler, an alchemical metallurgist, a revolutionary thief, and – my goodness – a poet of more than modest accomplishment. At a trim six feet two he was slightly taller than Annalee, and, at thirty-six, ten years older. He had unruly hair the color of sandstone, intense blue eyes that hid nothing, and a resonant baritone voice that caressed long vowels and lightly rolled the r. What made his handsome presence unusual was the black glove he wore on his left hand.
Annalee was smitten.
Daniel was impressed and somewhat intimidated by Shamus’s magnetic quality, but not enough to squelch his curiosity about the black glove. Annalee had always told him that if you want to know something, don’t be afraid to ask, but Daniel knew by the way she was behaving – which was goofy – that she would get upset if he pressed Shamus about the glove. He had to be clever. He waited till Smiling Jack had departed and Annalee, who was sure tossing her hair out of her eyes a lot, was in the kitchen making tea, which she never drank. Then he casually inquired of Shamus, ‘How many falcons do you hunt?’
He was immediately sorry. Shamus fixed him with those direct, uncompromising blue eyes. The teakettle began a low banshee whistle in the kitchen, mounting toward a shriek before Annalee lifted it off the stove.
In the sudden silence Shamus said, ‘Daniel, what are we talking about?’ His tone was pleasant, but tinged with both irritation and challenge.
Daniel could feel his mother listening. ‘Falcons,’ he said. ‘Mom and I spent a whole year studying birds of prey. Raptors is what that class of birds is called. Raptors. Isn’t that an amazing word? Like rapture.’
It didn’t work. ‘Indeed – a lovely word. Directly from the Latin raptor, meaning snatcher, derived from the root rapere, to seize, which is also the source of both rapt and rape, seizures of two different kinds, since in one the recipient is transported into joy and in the other is violated and demeaned. But tell me, Daniel, how is this etymological exploration germane to your question about the number of falcons I hunt?’
Annalee came in from the kitchen then with the tea. The cups were on saucers. He was sunk. ‘Well,’ he began, trying for a tone of bewildered innocence, ‘that’s a falconer’s glove, isn’t it?’
‘No, Daniel, it isn’t,’ Shamus said, his voice as cold and level as a frozen lake. ‘I wear it because my hand is disfigured, scarred from a burn.’
‘How did it happen?’
‘I accidently spilled a vessel of molten silver.’
‘Do you always wear a glove?’
‘Yes. Otherwise it attracts morbid attention, or revulsion, and a pity I find far more hideous than my hand.’
‘Do you take it off when––’
‘Daniel!’ Annalee lashed. ‘That’s enough. You’ve gone from a tactle
ss question to being plain rude.’
He used bewildered innocence again, appealing to Shamus with dismay and a hint of contrition. ‘Was I being rude?’
‘You were,’ Shamus said, then, added, ‘but I ascribed it more to cunning curiosity than thoughtlessness.’
‘Daniel wants to know everything,’ Annalee explained, her tone, Daniel noted with relief, fond and forgiving.
‘I’m sorry,’ Daniel said to Shamus. ‘Seven Moons told me it’s hard to know when to put yourself first.’
Shamus smiled, blue eyes glittering in the lamplight. ‘Your gracious and elegant apology is warmly accepted.’ He leaned forward, opening his glove hand palm up in front of Daniel. ‘I want you to understand this, Daniel. My hand is horribly disfigured. The black glove is mysterious. I would rather inspire mystery than horror in the beholder’s eye, and heart, and soul. That is my choice. If you don’t respect it, you are not a friend.’
‘But maybe it would be better to just see it instead of imagining what it looks like.’
‘Maybe so. I clearly don’t agree, given my choice.’
‘All right,’ Daniel said, leaving no doubt he meant it.
They stayed up late that first night, listening raptly as Shamus talked about precious metals, how and where they were mined, the processes of refinement, their colors, textures, properties, malleability and melting point, their importance in the parallel refinements and applications of human consciousness, their irreducible and essential purity – literally elemental. Both Daniel and Annalee were taken by his passion and eloquence, both excited and vaguely disturbed by the power of his appreciation, which seemed to vibrate between reverence and obsession.
After Shamus had gone down to the guest house, Daniel said to Annalee as she brushed her teeth, ‘You like him, don’t you?’
Annalee rinsed and spit. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Extremely attracted.’
‘I thought so.’
‘And what made you think that?’
‘The black glove.’
Annalee laughed. ‘More likely the blue eyes.’
‘Yeah, but the black glove too.’
‘Good-looking, spirited, intelligent, emotionally alive, surrounded by an aura of mystery and danger – yes, I’m attracted.’
Daniel thought for a moment. ‘Well, don’t get too strange or he’ll quit liking you.’
‘It shows, huh?’
‘To me,’ Daniel said, ‘but I know how you really are.’
Suddenly serious, Annalee said, ‘I wish I knew how I really was. That’s something I really need to know, that I’ve gotten hungry to know this last year. I need some mystery and danger and dark, handsome strangers. Do you understand what I’m messing up saying?’
‘I’m not sure. But it doesn’t matter; it’s your choice.’
Annalee hugged him. ‘Daniel,’ she solemnly swore, ‘you are a joy to my soul.’
The next evening, after explaining to Daniel that Shamus had invited her down to the guest house to discuss the alchemical properties of silver and gold, and that she hoped to be out quite late, Annalee waltzed out the door. Daniel was cooking some oatmeal when she floated back in the next morning.
‘Oh no!’ she declaimed, throwing a wrist to her forehead, ‘what a derelict mother, her lonely child starving as she frolics the night away.’
‘Boy,’ Daniel said, ‘you look happy. You must have really frolicked.’
‘We did. We built a castle and then we burned it down.’
‘Does that mean you made love?’
‘For real and for sure. Tenderly and wildly. Sweet and scalding. Eye to eye and breath to breath.’
Daniel nodded, not exactly sure what she meant but knowing she was pleased. When she paused, he said quickly, ‘Can I ask you something?’
‘Sure,’ Annalee said, but it was a nervous permission.
‘Did he take off his glove?’
‘Nope.’
Daniel nodded thoughtfully. ‘I didn’t think so. Can I ask another question that may be rude?’
‘Shoot,’ Annalee said, less nervous now than resigned.
‘Did you ask him to take off his glove?’
‘No.’
‘You like him a lot, don’t you?’
‘More every day,’ Annalee grinned.
More every night, too. She and Shamus began leaving as soon as the dinner dishes were done and not returning to the cabin till mid-morning. Daniel didn’t mind the shift in her attention – he was honestly pleased to see her so happy. Though he still felt slightly overwhelmed by Shamus and his black glove, and wasn’t sure if his respect was based on admiration or fear, he did like Shamus, and more so when Annalee elicited a playfulness that Daniel hadn’t suspected. Annalee, however, worried that Daniel was feeling neglected, and after the fifth night of sexual rampage suggested to Shamus that they should spend an evening with Daniel.
‘We’d better,’ Shamus had replied, nuzzling her shoulder, ‘or I will not survive what was supposed to be a time of contemplative rest.’
The next evening after dinner Shamus joined their study of their temporarily abandoned subject for the year, which was, loosely, American history and culture – or ‘how it was in the old days,’ as Daniel put it. The current text, barely begun, was The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. They took turns reading aloud, stopping at the end of each scene to ask questions or offer comments. Shamus even took notes in a red notebook he kept in his briefcase. His briefcase, like his black glove, was always there.
When Shamus finished his stint as reader, he wondered aloud if school ever recessed so that he might catch up on his notes.
‘Good idea,’ Annalee said. ‘I’m hungry. You guys want some popcorn?’
‘Two batches,’ Daniel said. ‘I’ll melt the butter.’
‘Let’s do it,’ Annalee said, squeezing Shamus’s thigh as she got up from the couch.
‘I have to pee first,’ Daniel said.
‘Go,’ Annalee said. ‘Never resist the call of nature. It strains the organs.’
‘She’s a wise woman, your mother,’ Shamus said to Daniel, looking at Annalee.
Daniel came back in almost immediately. ‘Hey, I hear a helicopter coming.’
‘Fuck!’ Shamus hissed. He shoved his notebook into the briefcase, extracting, as if by some magical exchange, a Colt 9 mm. automatic. ‘Let’s go,’ he said calmly. ‘Right now or we’re dead.’
Daniel grabbed his coat from the rack. As he hustled to put it on, a sleeve whipped the kerosene lamp off the end table. The lamp shattered, instantly bursting into flame.
‘Now!’ Shamus commanded, flinging him toward the door. Annalee grabbed Daniel and they sprinted toward the flat, Shamus right behind them, the helicopter suddenly louder as it came over the ridge. They plunged downhill at the flat’s edge, following a runoff ravine, the water shallow but numbingly cold. They could hear the helicopter swing over, the pulsing mechanical chop like the heartbeat of a frenzied locust. Annalee in the lead, Daniel between her and Shamus, they headed downhill toward the South Fork, battling a passage through the ferns and gooseberries and redwood suckers.
They rested a moment at the creek. Shamus panted ‘Coast?’ Annalee nodded, and they each took one of Daniel’s hands and forded the creek, the water shallow but swift, the rocks slippery. In moments they were gasping up the steep eastern slope of Seaview Ridge. Daniel felt like he was burning and freezing at the same time. Mindless, breathless, falling down and getting back up, he scrambled for the top.
They collapsed at the crest, huddling against the trunk of an ancient bay laurel, heaving for breath. Across the canyon, flames from their cabin paled the stars. At the edge of the flames they could make out six or seven vehicles, red lights blinking. With a strangled sob, Annalee began weeping. Shamus put his arm around her and pulled her close. ‘Just as well. Leave them ashes. You could have never gone back anyway.’
Annalee tried to slug him, all her fear and rage and grief gathered into the blow. She was in
too close and Shamus, feeling her weight shift as she drew back her fist, caught it with his forearm. He grabbed her wrist and held it for a second before pulling it toward his chest, bringing Annalee’s face to his. ‘I’m sorry, Annalee. Even though it’s the truth, it was a crass and thoughtless remark. I forgot it was your life. I’ll try never to let it happen again. Your life – and Daniel’s – matter to me.’
Annalee sighed raggedly, then wiped her face. ‘Do I have time to cry?’
‘Survival says no; love says forever.’
‘Mom,’ Daniel said, ‘do you think you can still love someone when you’re dead?’
Annalee wasn’t sure if it was an innocent question or not. ‘I don’t know.’
‘We want the nearest bar or café or motel from here,’ Shamus said. ‘Without being seen.’
‘Three miles south,’ Annalee said. ‘Tough ones.’
Shamus asked Daniel, ‘You got three miles left?’
‘I think I do.’
‘Let’s vanish then,’ Shamus said.
They followed the ridge line for almost a mile, then angled downhill until they saw the occasional flash of headlights on the highway. They traveled parallel to the road for another half mile, keeping to the trees, then descended abruptly into the Shell Cove Inn parking lot. Shamus hotwired a ’59 Impala and they took off for San Francisco, heater on full blast.
Shamus stopped at a gas station in Santa Rosa and made a call from a pay phone, then drove them south to a wrecking yard on the outskirts of San Rafael. There he introduced them to José and Maria Concepción. Maria loaded them into an old Chevy panel truck while José wheeled the Impala into the wrecking yard for some fast midnight dismantling. Maria whipped them across the Golden Gate and into her warm Mission District apartment, replaced their wet clothes with luxurious terrycloth robes from the hotel where she worked part-time as a maid, and filled their bellies with a spicy menudo.
