Iona Moon

by Melanie Rae Thon

  Girls’ cries carried across the water. Headlights blazed on the road as more seniors came to celebrate. Glass shattered on metal and a boy with a high voice said, “You fucker.” Iona hoped Darryl had smashed his beer bottle on Willy’s hood. She hoped he’d scraped the perfect blue paint and that Willy had laid him out flat. Another bottle cracked and then another. The boys were laughing now, nothing but a game, one more thing she’d never understand.

  Iona and Jeweldeen took turns with the rum and chased it with wine. They smoked cigarettes to stay thirsty. Iona lay down in the grass. If she concentrated, she could hear the water splashing against the riverbank, louder and louder, lapping over bottles and stones, twisting in the dark as it dragged tires and the bloated bodies of dead dogs toward the dam at South Bend. Everything stopped at the concrete wall. Sometimes Iona wished she lived in South Bend so that she could go down to the dam and see what the river gave up. Missing children and careless fishermen surfaced at the wall. Drowning wouldn’t be so bad, she thought. When you went under for the last time, the water would close above your head. You’d realize that the place you’d found was dark and safe, that the water flowing between your legs and over your breasts felt cool and good, and there was no sense in struggling because you were already moving too fast.

  “You’re hogging the rum,” Jeweldeen said.

  Iona farted. “You said it.”

  “You’re disgusting.”

  “Comes naturally.”

  “No one will ever marry you.”

  “Thank God.”

  “Yeah? And what are you gonna do with your life, Miss Independence?”

  “Join the circus.”

  “As what?”

  “The girl who gets sawed in half.”

  “I’d rather get married.”

  “I suppose you think you’re gonna meet some prince—live happily ever after.”

  “It’s possible.”

  “And where are you going to find this man?”

  “My own back door,” Jeweldeen said. “Or maybe yours.”

  “You want one of my brothers?”

  “I might.”

  “Which one?”

  “I haven’t decided.”

  “I’ll give you all three.” Iona remembered what Leon had said years ago—that Jeweldeen was dangerous.

  “Sssh,” said Jeweldeen, “there’s someone on the path.”

  “Iona?” It was Darryl McQueen. “Iona Moon?” He sang her name. “Are you out there?”

  “Goddamn it,” said Jeweldeen. “Thanks to you, we’ll be stuck with that mooch all night.”

  “He can have half my share.”

  “You already drank your share.”

  “Iona Moon, I’m looking for you.” Boys sounded so sweet in the beginning.

  “Over here,” said Iona.

  Darryl fell to his knees beside her. “I’ve been looking for you for half an hour,” he said. “Got another cigarette?”

  “I gave you a whole pack.”

  “Yeah, with six left. Luke took two and Kevin had one. I’m out, babe. What d’you say?”

  She gave Darryl an unopened pack. “You owe me for that one,” Jeweldeen said to Iona.

  “Yeah? How much do you charge for cigarettes you rip off from your sister?”

  “I’ll just take a couple,” said Darryl.

  “Forget it,” Iona said. “I gave you the pack. Jeweldeen doesn’t mind, do you, Jewels?”

  “Screw you.”

  “See? She doesn’t care.”

  “Wanna go for a ride?” Darryl said. “Sort of a trade for the smokes?”

  “Some trade,” said Jeweldeen.

  “I’ll go,” Iona said.

  “We have to wait for Sharla, remember?”

  “We’ll bring you back,” said Darryl.

  “Come on, Jewels.”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “Well, I’m going.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Fine,” Iona said.

  “Yeah, fine.”

  “You can sit here all by yourself, jump half out of your skin every time a twig snaps.”

  “I will. Thanks.”

  “I’ll be back by midnight.”

  “Don’t bother.”

  “Have it your way.” Iona took another pack of cigarettes and what was left of the rum. “You can keep the wine,” she said to Jeweldeen.

  “Don’t come knockin’ on Sharla’s door in the middle of the night,” Jeweldeen said. “I’m gonna tell her not to let you in.”

  Willy wasn’t happy to see who Darryl had dragged out of the woods. He didn’t want to take them for a ride, but they were going. Luke and Kevin argued about who had to ride up front with Willy and who got to hop in back with Darryl and Iona. Both those idiots would have wedged into the back if Darryl had let them, like Iona Moon was some kind of prize and Willy was nothing but the guy who drove the car. He knew damn well they didn’t like her any more than he did. Darryl already had his mouth all over her face and his hands under her jacket; he was making awful sucking noises as Willy backed over the ruts. But Willy knew for a fact that the same Darryl McQueen had never even said hello to Iona Moon at school.

  Willy believed you shouldn’t talk to a girl you didn’t like, even in the dark, even if she did decide to put out for you. He felt very pure and certain of himself on this point because he could have had Iona, right here, summer before last, and no one would have known.

  In the rearview mirror, Willy could see that Kevin had one hand on Iona’s leg and one on his own crotch just like some old geezer at the movies who gets off on the couple beside him instead of watching the show. Luke leaned over the seat to watch.

  Eighteen years old and those guys were already nasty as goats. Kevin was tall and blond, a bit too fair but handsome enough. He could have had a real date. He could have made a run on Twyla Catts and her friends. Not like Willy—or Darryl, for that matter. Maybe Luke Sweeney had a tougher time because he was so short. Girls ran their fingers through his hair but didn’t want to dance with him. Still, being five-foot-three was no excuse for turning into a pervert before you were out of high school.

  Iona laughed, pushing Darryl away. “Slow down,” she said, “you’re gonna wear yourself out.”

  “This guy never wears out,” Darryl said.

  But Iona held him off and lit a cigarette. Willy didn’t know what was worse: listening to those sucking noises or breathing in their smoke. She and Darryl passed the cigarette back and forth. Kevin asked for a hit, and then Luke wanted one too. Pretty soon Iona had lit a cigarette for each of them and Willy was practically choking.

  Darryl said he wanted to go somewhere quiet, somewhere they could relax with the rest of the beers and Iona’s rum; he didn’t want to meet up with half the senior class again. “Morons,” he said, “I bet you five bucks Willy’s father will bust them before midnight. Ol’ Horton’ll haul them all down to the jail and call their parents. What a scene.”

  The thought of it made Willy sick to his stomach; for a few seconds the road blurred. He felt as if it were slick with rain and he was skidding toward the ditch. He imagined his father yanking him out of his own car, counting beer bottles and cigarette butts, saying: I’m disappointed in you, son. Willy could swear he hadn’t had a drop. So you know it’s wrong. Yes, he knew. But you drove your friends around all night.

  If Willy cut out now, Darryl would figure the crack about Horton had gotten to him. They’d all have a good laugh. Coward. It was true. He’d just drop them somewhere private like Darryl said, then he’d get his butt home. By midnight he’d be asleep in his own bed with the covers pulled over his ears.

  “How about that shed up by the tracks?” Luke said. “The one where old man Hardy used to live.”

  “That place stinks,” said Iona.

  And your boyfriend lives there, Willy thought. She could fool everyone else in this car, but not him.

  “No one will come up there,” Darryl said.

&nb
sp; “Except Matt Fry,” said Kevin.

  Luke leaned over the seat. “I thought he died,” he said.

  This made Darryl and Kevin hoot. Iona lit another cigarette. “I’m telling you,” she said, “Hardy kept his goats and chickens right in the shed. There’s three inches of dried shit on the floor.”

  “Maybe we should just burn it down,” Darryl said, “do the county a favor.”

  “And have Willy’s dad screaming up here for sure.”

  “She’s right,” Willy said. He hated siding with Iona Moon. He wanted to tell Darryl what Matt Fry and Iona used to do together, what they probably still did.

  Willy did head up toward the tracks, but he stayed a good mile from the shed. As soon as he stopped, the boys opened the doors and leaped out, howling like wild dogs. Willy saw no sense in pressing their luck even though they were miles from town. If he left now, he could be home by ten-thirty. But he’d never live it down. This was his last summer on the diving team, and he couldn’t stand the thought of being razzed for three months, called little-miss-goodie-two-shoes: only girls are prudes. Wait till they heard Horton was putting him on part-time in September. Wait till they figured out that next June he might be rounding up drunken seniors with his father. In two years he’d have enough experience to go to the academy in Pocatello. That was one more reason not to get caught tonight.

  Kevin wanted to build a fire, and Darryl said, “You’re stupider than you look, Burch. You should have gone out for football.”

  “The thicker the neck, the smaller the brain,” Luke said.

  “Yeah,” said Kevin, “and the smaller the foot, the shorter the dick.”

  Everyone stared at Luke’s tiny feet. “Score,” Darryl said. Iona sat down in the high grass and opened the rum. It was still half full, and the boys had eleven beers between them. Willy stood by the car with his door open.

  “You’re making me nervous,” Kevin said. The dome light glowed yellow, the only bright spot for miles.

  “Yeah, shut the door,” said Luke.

  “Let him be,” Darryl said. “Chauffeurs are supposed to stay by the car.”

  Willy slammed the door, thinking of the day he’d have a blue light and a siren.

  Darryl rubbed his hand up and down Iona’s thigh and kissed her neck. “I used to charge my brothers a nickel for that,” she said.

  “For what?”

  “For touching me. A penny to watch me dance, a nickel to touch my tits.”

  “I’ve got a quarter,” Luke said.

  “What’ll you do for a dollar?” said Kevin, digging in his pocket.

  Willy knew the answer to that. He’d heard what she’d done to get a dollar from Bonnie Zimmerman.

  Darryl put his hand under her shirt and cupped her breast. “I’m not paying for something I can get for free.”

  Iona knocked his hand away, but Willy remembered how she tried to make him touch her, just that way. She’d probably do it with all of them before the night was out. What did Darryl call it? Pulling a train. Willy wasn’t going to stick around to see. And he wasn’t going to try to stop it either. You make your bed, you lie in it, his mother always told him. He knew his father’s words too: A man who watches a crime has helped commit it. Willy thought of Mrs. Stiles at Sunday school, a passage she wrote on the board and made them copy: I hate the company of evildoers, and I will not sit with the wicked. It was that simple.

  But he stayed a moment longer because he’d heard what his mother had said after Hannah Moon died. Flo whispered to Horton in the kitchen, not knowing Willy stood at the door. “She couldn’t have weighed more than seventy-five pounds. I don’t know how she lived as long as she did. And she was clean. I washed her, but she was already clean. The girl’s been taking care of her all this time.”

  It was hard to believe that the same Iona Moon who bathed her sick mother and dressed her bedsores was selling kisses to Luke Sweeney and Kevin Burch, letting Darryl McQueen collect the nickels.

  She was a dirty girl who just happened to be kind to her mother. So what? Even a murderer might be nice to his parents. Willy got in the car and started the engine. If anyone wanted to come with him, this was his chance. Iona pecked Luke and Kevin before she fell in Darryl’s lap and took another pull of rum. Willy hit the lights. Last chance. He’d even take Iona if she made a run for the car. That’s how open-minded he was. Didn’t Jesus shelter Mary Magdalene? Iona was standing, swaying as if tossed by wind. Maybe she was going to come with him; maybe she had the sense to save herself. No. Iona Moon twirled in the beams of light, dancing in front of the boys for free. She waved to Willy, blowing him kisses, saying, “Bye-bye, Willy—bye-bye.”

  He was too mad to go straight home. If his mother was awake, she’d see that something was wrong. She’d say, “Willy, baby, what is it?” He’d feel his heart tearing deep in his chest because she’d look at him so sweetly, as if he were still a child and she could still make everything all right with a kiss. He dragged Main for an hour. He wanted to buzz out the River Road again, just to see who was still there and if anything had happened. But the guys were probably right. Any minute now he might hear the cry of his father’s siren and know that half those kids would get away and half wouldn’t. The unlucky ones would have to wait down at the jail for their humiliated parents to come and drive them home. For weeks afterward those kids would do Saturday chores for the city: picking up litter and clearing out rain gutters, mowing the grass in Woodvale Park.

  He thought of paying a visit to Jay too, just dropping in on his old buddy. He’d tell Jay all about Iona Moon. Jay would say she’d wanted it since she was thirteen, and Willy could stop feeling like he’d done something wrong, leaving her up there by the railroad tracks with his three pals.

  But he knew it was wrong. He knew Iona didn’t have a chance, and even if she did want it, that didn’t make it right. So he was driving back to the tracks because he had to be sure. Even if they laughed at him, even if by some fluke his father came up there instead of down to the river, Willy Hamilton had no choice.

  He didn’t find anything except empty bottles and a pile of cigarette butts. He pointed his headlights right at the place where he’d left Iona and the boys, but there wasn’t a clue: no signs of a struggle, just the flattened grass where they’d sat and a hole someone had dug in the dirt for the cigarettes. He was a jerk to worry about Iona, a girl like that could take care of herself, a girl like that got just what she deserved. He could go home now and sleep in peace. In a week he’d start diving practice and the guys would tell him what he’d missed.

  He had the key in the ignition when he heard something move in the grass. Just my imagination, he told himself, and he knew that all he had to do was start the engine to keep from hearing the sound again. But it was already too late. He got out of the car and called her name. He heard it again, a hissing noise. “Iona,” he said, “is that you?” And he prayed no one would answer.

  He walked toward the sound and nearly tripped over her. She scooted away like a spooked dog. He knelt, just as he would to show an animal that he was no threat, and held out his hand even though he had nothing to offer. “Did they hurt you?” he said. Stupid. He wished he could swallow his question. Her shirt was torn and her jacket was gone, but her pants were still on, her belt still buckled.

  “My shoes,” she said, “they took my fucking shoes.”

  Willy inched closer and Iona jerked back. “I’m not gonna do anything,” he said. He sat down cross-legged to show her he was telling the truth.

  She touched her right eye carefully. “I think Darryl gave me a black eye.”

  Even in the dark, Willy could see that her face looked bruised. He hoped it was just dirt. Darryl McQueen wouldn’t slug a girl. “Tell me what happened,” he said.

  “They got carried away.”

  “They got carried away? I didn’t see you objecting.”

  “You’re an asshole.”

  “Yeah, right, and I’m sitting here talking to you because
I’m an asshole. I drove all the way back up here because I’m an asshole.”

  “Spare me.”

  “Gladly,” Willy said. He stood up and brushed himself off. His headlights still blasted the place where it had all started. She wants to be left alone so I’ll leave her, he told himself, but he couldn’t keep from turning and calling out, “Come on, Iona. Let me give you a ride.”

  “Fuck you,” she said.

  Sometimes it wasn’t easy to do the right thing. “I mean it,” he said. “I’ll take you home.”

  “I don’t need any favors from assholes.”

  Fine. It was fine by him if she didn’t sit in his car. He didn’t want to look at her. He didn’t want to get lost on the Kila Flats. And he never did like the way she smelled.

  Willy started to town but didn’t get far before he spotted his friends on the tracks, at the bend where the road ran beside the railroad for half a mile. They’d gone to the shed and found Matt Fry after all. Willy slowed down and turned off his lights. They must have made Matt drink the rest of the rum because now his legs were limp. Darryl and Kevin each had one of his arms draped over their shoulders so they could run with Matt between them, dragging him back and forth, letting his feet thump against the ties. Luke Sweeney ran behind, too short to take a turn.

  Willy pulled over on the shoulder and ran up the embankment to the tracks. Kevin and Darryl dropped their load, and the boy crumpled.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Willy said.

  “That bitch was holding out on us,” said Darryl, “and she got her claws in me besides.” He turned to show Willy a long scratch down his left cheek.

  “This is why she didn’t want us to come up to the shed.” Kevin kicked the lump, but it didn’t move.

  “Must be her sweetheart,” Luke said.

  Willy crouched to feel Matt’s neck. There was still a pulse. “Let’s get him off the tracks,” he said.

  “Why bother?” said Darryl. “Nobody gives a damn.”