Finton Moon

by Gerard Collins

  To Tom, the gesture appeared more like an exorcism than a blessing. “Not to worry,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with him that can’t be fixed.”

  Two weeks later, Finton’s scar was barely visible, but his mother sometimes traced her finger across its shadowy arc and wondered how much the child had been damaged.

  Sawyer

  (1968)

  Welcome to Darwin: God’s Country, Pop. 2500

  “Lies,” his father would say each time they rumbled past the large green sign on the side of the highway. “The works of it is nudding but dirty-arsed lies.”

  One of Finton’s favourite pastimes was sitting in the front seat of the powder blue Valiant, cruising from one end of Darwin to the other, while his father drove. They’d roll across the umbilical steel bridge connecting Darwin to the rest of the world, then a few more miles to the highway before turning around and heading back towards town. His father’s guiding hand was centred at the top of the wooly steering wheel, his left arm dangling out the open window, a smoke protruding like an extra digit between his yellowed fingers. “Population’s goin’ down, Finton. More likely to see Satan than God—so it’s not God’s country no more, if it ever was. And no one here likes strangers.”

  Legs dangling above the muddy floor mats, Finton would crane his neck to look up at his father when he spoke. He loved those rants about what was wrong with the world today. Tom Moon rarely alluded to days gone by. No one did, which left Finton to assume that the past was irrelevant. The bare historical fact was that Darwin was an insignificant trench created by a gargantuan glacier that scraped slowly across the face of Newfoundland a thousand centuries ago on its way to the ocean. As if in recompense for its accidental and violent birth, thousands of years later Darwin found itself cradled by ocean and hugged by forest. While farming such hard, salty land was a formidable vocation, Irish and English fishermen in the 1700s pegged the low-lying flatbed as an ideal refuge from which to instigate a cottage fishery. Their descendants in the late-twentieth century would regret the choice when the cod fell away, and Darwin became a town that could sustain existences but not livelihoods. But Finton knew nothing of this history and, furthermore, was unconcerned.

  The tranquil life was tedious to some, but to a curious, young boy every tree boasted a fairy and every rock concealed a monster. Fields of tall grass were oceans to swim and the Laughing Woods teemed with bears, wolves, and Indian braves. In a secret alcove in the woods beyond the perimeter of the red schoolhouse, Finton rode a tree that was supple and strong, his getaway horse from marauding Apaches. From high above the ground, he could hear the clanging call of the teacher’s handbell, though he sometimes pretended otherwise. “Hiyo, Silver, away!” he’d cry, and he rode like the wind. In a dark thicket only minutes from home, wounded by an arrow and hiding from the Indians, he retreated to the foxhole, a bowl-shaped hollow in the forest floor, stockpiled with spruce cones and other crude weapons. The Laughing Woods concealed many enemies but gave refuge to those who knew its secrets, and Finton was one of the chosen few.

  Another favourite hiding spot was the front seat of his parents’ skyblue Valiant. On summer days, he would scrunch into the front seat, with the vehicle parked at the top of the lane a few yards from the house and no one around to disturb him. One day when he was eight, as he inhabited a hardcover of Man O’ War, a frantic thump on the driver’s window jolted him upright. His mother had placed both hands to the glass, cupped her thin lips and mouthed, “SAWYER MOON!” Before the blue-tinged half moon of her breath had faded from the window, Finton had scrambled to unlock the door.

  “Winnie called and said Sawyer Moon is on the go!”

  Finton slammed his book shut, clutched it to his chest, and scurried behind his mother. He glanced back only once to catch a glimpse of the familiar figure on the road, slouching towards the lane.

  “Oh God! He’s gonna see us!” his mother hissed. “Come on, Finton!”

  Perpetually on the move, going nowhere and everywhere simultaneously, Sawyer Moon always kept his hands plunged deep into the pockets of his baggy, brown trousers, head bent forward as if fighting a cruel wind, legs reaching forward, grabbing ground in the manner of a soldier attempting to take a hill that will not be won. Sawyer didn’t have friends, though he often talked to Finton’s father. Most people skittered away, locked their doors and pulled the shades upon his approach. Tom Moon was the only one who never avoided Sawyer—a fact which made Finton question his father’s sanity, but also filled him with admiration for his remarkable kindness.

  Sawyer was hunched over like a Grimm brothers’ troll in his khakigreen Army jacket with its lamb’s wool lining that was yellowed and stained brown with tobacco, grease, and turpentine. A sprawling, dark splotch across his chest looked like Jesus on the cross, while another one on his arm resembled a map of Africa. He wore a red hunting hat, and from under his coat protruded a plaid polyester jacket over a white shirt with two buttons undone, revealing the round neck of a white t-shirt. Sawyer’s rumpled outfit had deteriorated from having served as pajamas on numerous occasions in various sketchy locales.

  Ever since Finton could remember, people had warned him about Sawyer. “He’s outta the mental for the weekend,” someone would report, and the word would spread like a virus.

  The most popular theory was that Sawyer had lost his mind in the war, had come home at nineteen with an arm injury, a red dragon tattoo on his left shoulder, and a small pension to reward him for being one of the few survivors of a bloody battle in Korea. Since then, and before, he had always lived with his mother Minnie. He couldn’t dress himself. He had sent away to Sears for the girl in the pink bra and panties on page forty-eight. When he was a boy, he had thrown his mother down the stairs while she was pregnant, which is why she was so stunned and he was an only child. He ate only raw meat that he killed with his bare hands, and on nights when Sawyer couldn’t sleep, he trolled the woods in search of dubious sport.

  Finton had no reason to doubt any of this. His teachers would sometimes cancel recess because Sawyer Moon was “on the go.” Once, Finton’s whole gang was caught by surprise when Sawyer leaped out from behind a boulder, arms outstretched like the Mummy, his terrible pink tongue hanging to one side of his mouth and dripping saliva, his eyes blazing red. The children bolted, and Finton ran too, though he often wondered what would happen if he let Sawyer catch him.

  Now ushered inside, his heart pounded like a bodhran beating the rhythm of a Celtic reel. “Don’t look out the window!” His mother peeked through the curtains. These moments, like thunderstorms or fights between his parents, terrified him. Finton didn’t speak, but he rarely did anyway. “There’s times,” his mother would tell people, “Finton can be as quiet as death.”

  Elsie slightly lifted the kitchen curtains and quickly let them fall. “He’s comin’ up the lane.” She crouched beside the cupboard, in front of the humming refrigerator; her hand lay absently upon the silver handle as if she were thinking of climbing inside. Gently, but firmly, she pushed her son away, indicating that he was to hide on his own. Finton panicked and dropped to the floor. He crawled under the table a few feet from the door, whose window was devoid of a drape and potentially exposed him to the enemy.

  “Don’t make a sound,” Elsie whispered, plucking the black rosary beads from around her neck and running them through her callused fingers. “Not a single word.” He wondered what would happen if one of his brothers were to make a sudden appearance, but he figured they were down at Bilch’s, playing pool and drinking Pepsi.

  Laying Man O’ War spine-up on the canvas, Finton grasped the table leg before him, fist over fist, and closed his eyes. Like the arrival of a storybook giant, footsteps stomped the concrete steps: tap-tap-stop, followed by knocking—Pound! Pound! Pound!

  Finton opened his eyes and saw a wizened face peering through the window, the vacant eyes searching for human life. The voice slurred like a wounded bear: “I knows yer in there… hidin’ from m
e, ya bashturds!” Finton tucked his head between his knees and hugged them close, assuming this posture would make him invisible. He shuddered and hugged them closer when Sawyer struck the door again.

  “Let me in!” he roared.

  As Finton looked up and caught Sawyer’s gaze, they were both transfixed. With his big-fisted paw, the intruder alternately hammered the door and rapped on the glass. Finton felt like crying. “Gotta go to the bathroom,” he whispered.

  “Don’t you dare move! If he sees you we’ll have to let him in.”

  Wrapped in a tight bundle, Finton quivered beneath the table and silently prayed to Jesus to make Sawyer go away. Just like counting the time between crashes of thunder, Finton breathlessly tallied the seconds separating Sawyer’s barrages. Longer spaces between poundings meant that Sawyer was getting tired and soon would leave. At first the blows rained continually, but then grew lighter, with time in between. After a while—maybe half a minute—Sawyer seemed to take breathers. The first break was eight seconds; the next was fourteen; then it was forty, and Finton could hear talking—a shout of greeting. Finally, when the knocking had stopped for several moments, he peeked out the window and saw no Sawyer. He thanked Jesus and made the sign of the cross. The storm had passed. He still dared not move, but waited for a word from his mother. She knelt on the floor, her brown, permed head bowed against the hard, white fridge and her hands clasped as she whispered a rosary.

  “He’s gone,” Finton said, feeling the wonder and relief of certainty. She shot him a sharp look and finished a Hail Mary before blessing herself and going to the window to peek through the curtain.

  “What in the name of Jesus—”

  “What?”

  “Your father—what’s he doin’ out there?”

  “What?”

  “He’s talking to Sawyer Moon. There’s more sense in a cow than there is—don’t tell me he’s bringin’ ’im in. Sweet Jesus—” She jerked away from the door and folded her arms across her chest defensively.

  The door handle rattled, but Finton’s mother had locked it. His father kicked the door three times, making the windowpane jostle in its frame. “Else! Open the door!”

  Elsie obeyed and stepped aside to let Tom and his guest enter.

  “Else, have we got five dollars to lend Sawyer?” With his right index finger, Tom repeatedly jabbed his left palm, for he rarely rested his hands in his pockets; he was always gesturing, smoking, clutching or clouting. “Till Thursday?” When he laid one brotherly hand on Sawyer’s shoulder, Finton’s gaze fixed on his father’s grease-blackened knuckles, which meant he had been labouring on someone’s car. He was proud that other kids’ fathers had to come to his for such important repairs. While Tom was known to be a bit of a hard ticket who always had trouble finding steady work, he was well regarded for his talent in saving cars from the junkyard.

  “I have twenty,” Elsie said, a slight quiver in her voice, placing her hands on her hips in mock defiance. “But we need groceries, and I wouldn’t mind a night o’ bingo to get outta this friggin’ house.”

  Finton watched as Sawyer stood in the doorway, rubbing his grizzled chin with his left hand, a sly expression on his face as he looked around. To the boy, who couldn’t help but rankle his nose and rub his eyes from the stench of sweat and turpentine, he appeared to be appraising the meagre contents of the kitchen. Finton had never known any visitor but the parish priest to exceed the boundaries of the kitchen; very few saw the inside of the slightly more comfortable living room that was just beyond it. He would often hear stories about parties and good times in the tiny living room “in olden times,” which was what Nanny Moon called the days when people laughed and danced so roughly that the McNulty Family record would skip from beginning to end on the suitcase turntable that had come in the mail from relatives in Boston. There would be beer and cake, chips and Cheezies, and sometimes even a pot of homemade turkey soup. Someone always brought a guitar for Tom to play and sing “My Lovely Irish Rose.” But those were the good old days, which seemed to have ended just before Finton’s coming.

  Sawyer’s presence emphasized that people rarely came to the Moon house anymore. To Finton’s admiration, he did not seem to be the slightest bit discomfited to be standing in someone else’s kitchen asking for money. He had removed his cap, however, and tucked it under one armpit in what Finton took as a show of respect. It was the first time he had seen Sawyer’s bare head, and it surprised him to learn that his hair, though shorn close to his scalp, was still brown and thriving.

  Tom, meanwhile, had joined his hands in supplication, not for the money, but for his wife to stop talking in that whining voice. “Do we have it or not?”

  Elsie sighed and stared at the closed curtains through which the light begged for entry. Finton knew she had noticed the clasped, tense hands. “I’ll get me bloody purse,” she said and stomped to the bedroom. Upon returning, she gave a crisp, blue bill to Tom, who thrust it towards Sawyer’s ready hand.

  Finton scrutinized the soft manner in which Sawyer took the bill with his thick fingers. “Thanks, Tom, b’y.” His raspy voice had taken on a pathetic, conciliatory tone that made Finton’s stomach queasy. “Ye were always good to ol’ Saw.”

  Tom again laid a hand on Sawyer’s shoulder as if to offer absolution. “Is that enough, now?”

  “Oh yish, yish. Go’ blesh ya, ol’ buddy.” He winked at Tom, who looked away out the kitchen window, and assessed Elsie as if he didn’t quite trust her not to smack him. “You too, Elsie Moon. Yer a good soul to poor ol’ Shawyer.”

  “Yer welcome,” she said, and Finton thought her face would crack from the strain. He wondered, Is this really the woman in the stories from “olden days”? He doubted his mother had ever been happy, let alone jumping to the McNulty Family record and making it skip.

  When Sawyer had shuffled out the door, the arguing began. Voices bellowed and arms waved angrily. Finton sat on the floor, his back to the wood stove, wringing the spindles of a chair in his hands, wishing he could conjure a genie to whisk him away on a magic carpet to some foreign land.

  “I wouldn’t mind if you were gettin’ work from the garage, but that money—”

  Tom raised his hands to his ears. “I don’t wanna hear it.”

  Elsie suddenly turned her back to her husband and snapped the faucet on full force. Dishes clanked with a distressing din over which she was forced to shout, “My father used to say, a fool and his money are soon parted!”

  With an angry slap at the back of a kitchen chair, Tom stomped into the living room and forced himself to sit in front of the floor-model television, which was switched on with the sound turned down. The Friendly Giant was on in the usual black and white, with the two musical cats blowing noiselessly on their French horn and saxophone; Rusty the Rooster strummed on a tiny acoustic guitar specially sized to fit under a chicken’s wings, and Jerome the giraffe swayed his long, spotted neck, while the white-haired giant in his tunic, arms folded, surveying all, smiled benevolently and pretended to enjoy the racket.

  Finton heard the angry shuffle of matchsticks in a box, the flare of the flame, the first puff, the release of breath. A billow of white smoke floated from the corner of the room towards the television set. He heard his mother’s nagging voice, still chasing her husband to his resting place: “Don’t know what we’re gonna do for groceries now. There’s nudding there for supper, and Clancy registerin’ for softball tomorrow.” She paused for a response, and Finton held his breath until she continued. “Just like the rest o’ yer family. That’s why none of the Moons never had nudding, never will have nudding. Either drinkin’ it, smokin’ it, or givin’ it away.”

  “Stop!” Finton shouted, clutching the spindles, his small face peering at her from behind the bars. “Yer only makin’ ’im mad again.”

  “Go read a book, Finton. Get outside on a nice day like this.”

  “But you told me to come in ’cause of—”

  “Yer mother told you to g
et out!” a voice roared from the living room.

  Finton flinched and bumped the back of his head on the iron handle of the oven door. “I wish ye’d make up your bloody minds.” With one hand, he rubbed his head and inspected his fingers for blood. He squeezed back the tears that blurred his vision, not wanting them to assume it was because he was sensitive.

  “Lord thunderin’ Jesus—” Then the pattern unfolded: the matchbox struck Rusty’s beak; his father’s feet pounded the canvas as he whipped out his brown leather belt, rushed towards Finton, grabbed his shoulder and whacked him on the arse.

  “Don’t you ever talk back to your mother again! What’n hell do you think?”

  “I just wants ye to stop fightin’. Yer always at it!” His own tears blinded him, and he rubbed his eyes, growing angrier at nearly letting them see the extent of his pain. Don’t you cry, he told himself. Don’t you cry.

  “Get out, ya goddamn sissy!” his father said and whacked his behind again as Finton skittered past him, bending down to snatch up his book. With Man O’ War clutched to his chest, Finton stumbled into the daylight and didn’t stop running until he’d gotten far away from that house. Deep in the woods, he collapsed into the foxhole.

  “What’n hell do you think?” His father always said that when he was hitting someone, though he never expected an answer, just wanted to point out the confused nature of the antagonist.

  Finton lay back, his head against a rock, Man O’ War open flat on his chest, its spine raised upward as if in readiness. With black flies buzzing around him, the occasional one pitching on his face, his only thoughts were of hatred and revenge. He was capable of killing his father when he cursed and hit him, asking, “What’n hell do you think?” He despised his mother for stirring him up. Why couldn’t she just give in to him? She always had to struggle and make it worse for them all.

  The longer he lay there, gazing up at the tree tops and savouring the singing of hot, boiling sap, the more his anger subsided into helplessness. He’d never felt like a part of this family, with their rough ways. It wasn’t just the constant swearing or the loud voices, but the way those voices talked to, and about, one another in a casually callous way. It was the insensitive manner in which they treated most living things, whether slapping a child’s face, drowning unwanted kittens, or eating a good meal without seeing the need for gratitude. It was the way his mother, like a good Darwin wife, complained in a high, shrill voice about her husband’s drinking, while he, in her absence, like a good Darwin husband, would call his wife by indelicate names. But more than their voices, it was their silence that bothered him: their unwillingness to speak words that could easily build bridges, settling for careless actions that, instead, built fences or moats.