Iona Moon

by Melanie Rae Thon

  He came a moment after her, thrusting hard. The second orgasm left him limp, exhausted. He curled around her, one leg over hers, soft cock nuzzling her thigh, face pressed to her neck under her damp hair.

  The candle flickered out while they slept. They woke in darkness and made love again, but the afternoon was wearing on and they were both thinking of the night. He strained to come quickly, to be done with it. He heard Mrs. Stiles say: An animal act, and thought of the old woman’s dry hands, the ropes of blue veins, how her hot blood seemed to leap into his body where she touched him. His hands pressed the sheet as he moved against the woman in this bed. He did not kiss her or look at her. He thought only of himself, of his own breath, the way that sound filled the room.

  Delores showered alone, and Willy lay on the bed, listening to the water. He smelled her now, on him, and wished he had been the first to wash.

  While Willy was in the bathroom, Delores turned on the light to gather up her clothes. He found her that way, on her knees, white rump in the air, looking under the bed. They dressed quickly and slipped out the back entrance of the hotel, their hair still wet.

  In the car on the way back to White Falls, they had nothing to say. He parked in front of her house, hoping she would climb out quickly. “Call me,” she said.

  Willy drummed the steering wheel with his fingers. “Sure,” he said, “of course.”

  Driving home, he thought of the welts on Roy Wilkerson’s palms and wished he could kneel now to take those blows.

  18

  Iona stared at the stain on the ceiling. It opened and spread, the shape of a womb, dark as dried blood. The man upstairs was vacuuming again. She thought of him, moments before, lying on his bed, fighting down his urge the same way she fought hers. Muscles tightened around his ribs. His breath came fast and shallow. He had already swept the floor, dusted the windowsill, vacuumed the rug. Panic rose in him like a hand inside his chest, reaching up, a fist in his throat. He peeked under the bed, crawled to the dresser, ran his finger along the ledge of the frame above the closet door. Yes, dirty. Now the frenzy began.

  The wheels of the little machine rolled across Iona’s ceiling. She pressed her pillow to her ears, but it was too late. The legless doll sat in her chair peering at Iona with her one good eye. Seven o’clock, four hours to kill before she had to relieve Stanley. She hated it when the doll looked at her that way. It still wore the red T-shirt, tied in a knot over the holes in the torso. All her money was stuffed inside, crumpled bills wadded together. She no longer cared how much there was. Enough, she thought, enough to get away.

  Later Iona saw that the kids had started a bonfire in the vacant lot. She stood at her window, watching the flames lick higher and higher. Soon the fire trucks would come to douse the weeds, but for now the kids were dancing in a circle, stamping and shouting. One boy waved a burning stick, painting a fire, sculpting a blaze. Sirens howled in the distance. By the time she left for work, the black grass was wet, beaten flat, the street deserted.

  Alice visited Eddie in the middle of the night, brought him a bag of food as she had every night since the arrest. She never got out of the car. Iona saw the big head, wide shoulders, one pale hand holding the paper sack. It was easy to imagine the rest: wide feet cramped in a pair of pumps, thick legs, big-boned Alice, full breasts and full belly.

  Eddie was getting a bit of a paunch himself, eating that extra meal, sandwiches and apples, boxes of raisins, slices of pie. Iona remembered how he’d felt his whole leg in bed with her, the lost calf, the knee that still bent, warmth of blood all the way to his toes. He said: This never lasts. Iona understood how a man could stay away from her—but his own leg, how could he abandon that?

  She imagined him growing huge and round, swelling with his wife’s food. They’d lie on top of each other, Eddie and Alice, too bloated to move, hopelessly separated by the humps of their stomachs.

  Iona wanted to eat herself numb. She stole a box of cereal, a quart of milk. Alone, in her room, she found it difficult to chew, nearly impossible to swallow. The first bite was good, the second disappointing. The third bite exhausted her, and she set the bowl on the floor.

  One night she climbed a tree to see in a window of the house with stone lions. The mother brushed her daughter’s hair, slowly, tenderly. Iona thought of Hannah, yanking her hair, pulling it tight to snip it close to the scalp. I know where you got this, Iona. She remembered standing in front of Jay Tyler’s house, late fall; the trees were bare, the grass yellow, matted and muddy from a snow that had melted. She didn’t want to see Hannah’s hair, but she did, brittle yellow strands wound in the brush. Still the woman brushed her child’s hair, fifty strokes, a hundred. People didn’t die in houses like these. They went to hospitals and died in rooms with white sheets and white walls. No daughter here wiped her mother’s bottom or stripped her mother’s bed. No girl ever stood in an empty room and whispered: Where is she? She wished the kids from her block would build a bonfire in this yard, that the flames would rage, devouring wood and paint, curtains and piano; she longed to hear the pop of glass and a child who was not herself screaming.

  By the middle of November, Stanley stopped trying to get his hands on Iona every time she moved in front of him. “There’s nothing left to grab,” he said. “Why don’t you help yourself to a salami sub tonight—or a pint of ice cream?”

  Just thinking about the fat-pocked salami made her feel sick, but ice cream seemed like a good idea. It was smooth, easy to swallow. She didn’t get around to it, though. Eating was too much trouble. As soon as Stanley was out of the store she broke open a carton of Chesterfields and started smoking instead.

  It was the cigarettes that did her in. Odette noticed the split carton before she even said hello. That saved her the trouble of a greeting all together.

  “Just the other night,” Odette said, “just the other night I was lying awake waiting for Stanley to get home, making a list in my head of things that were missing, knowing that any day now I was going to catch you red-handed. I’ve seen it from the beginning. I told Stanley, ‘Just look at her eyes—the girl’s a thief.’”

  “Aren’t you even going to ask me if I paid?”

  Odette pushed the cigarettes toward Iona. “Did you?”

  The lie would have been easy. But Iona was tired. So tired. She slipped the carton under her jacket and headed for the door. She glanced over her shoulder. “I didn’t pay for them,” she said. “I didn’t pay for the fucking cigarettes.”

  They owed her a week’s wages. She figured she’d get it from Stanley tonight. Yes, it was important not to forget the money. But right now she had to go home.

  The mattress rocked. She needed to sleep but couldn’t. Her head felt twice its size, swollen with fluid. The sky was dark by six, the streets slick with rain.

  When she left the house again, her big head threw her off balance. She was hungry—limbs jittery, stomach raw—but the banging made her dizzy, too nauseous to eat. She’d forgotten how it felt to live without this ache, the steady pressure behind her face, her skull too small for its brain. The pain burst as she walked down the hill, a shot fired into her ear and out her eye. She had to stop to catch her breath, lean against a telephone pole until the wave passed and she could move.

  The lions roared, calling to her. She knew she shouldn’t go to them, knew she should go home, take a warm shower, crawl under her covers, wait. But for what?

  The house was empty; black glass wavered, catching headlights. She stood in the yard, hidden by the trunk of an elm. Someone would be home soon. She felt the deep grooves of the bark, the rough skin of the tree.

  She closed her eyes. Impossible to think she slept, standing there in the rain, but when she looked again, the parlor was lit. The mother sat at the piano with the boy on her lap, his tiny hands resting on her large hands so he could feel her play. Iona pressed the side of her face against the gnarled bark, let it bite her cheek as she thought of the woman’s soft hands, how warm they were, how
lightly they moved. She didn’t know how this could be. How could people be this warm while she stood in the rain. How could a mother’s cheeks be full and flushed. How could music be so sweet.

  She hunched against the rain, soaked now, and headed back to Broadway. The money—Stanley owed her. Her head bulged with blood—huge, hot. People jostled her on the street, or she butted into them—she couldn’t tell, but they were the ones to swear.

  Stanley cussed too, under his breath. He reached for something below the counter. A gun? She asked for the money. Stanley shook his head. No fucking way. He clenched his teeth, hating her—no wrath like the wrath of a man scorned. Iona wanted to laugh. Pretty baby. He wouldn’t call her that now. All my kindness and you repay me this way. He didn’t say that either. But she knew. “You’re not getting a dime from me.” Motherfucker. She didn’t feel like laughing now. She fingered the knife in her pocket. Nothing mattered. Her pulse banged at her temple, and she imagined a hundred capillaries bursting with every heartbeat. She remembered: his fingers tight around her wrist, all his stolen kisses, his cock growing hard when he rubbed against her—nothing she’d taken compared with that. Darryl pushed her to the ground; Leon pinned her in the straw; Jay pressed her to the vinyl seat; Eddie left her rocking on the black waves. In her mind, the blade of the knife was long and silver, smooth, just polished. She saw the pig strung up by its hind feet, blood pouring from a hole in its neck. She saw a string of rabbits with no eyes and no skin. It was so easy, the knife so fast, if only Stanley knew how he tempted her.

  But this knife was rusted, its blades short. Neither Stanley nor Iona moved. She thought she said, “Just give me the money.” She thought he answered, “Get the fuck out of here.”

  She grabbed a six-pack of Coke on the way out, heard him yell, felt the air behind her move as he charged. She was out the door and the six-pack was sailing back toward the store. The front window exploded in a million icy shards. Sound filled the street; sound filled the whole night, as if the sky itself had broken and fallen on the wet pavement. She saw Stanley’s face at the door. She saw Eddie’s face rising in his glass cage. She saw the glow of a hundred streetlights ahead of her and felt her feet flying.

  A hole opened—black, tempting—a tear in the sky, and she passed through it, to the other side of her life, where streets had familiar names but everything was strange. She crashed in an abandoned warehouse on Western Avenue, thinking she’d be safer here, buried under a pile of old newspapers. Her hand was sticky with blood. She thought of the rusty knife and wondered if she had used it after all, if some part of her memory was lost and Stanley was lying on the floor, bleeding.

  In the morning, she walked up the hill. A man had made a home for himself under the viaduct—just a board stretched between two struts, but he slept there, all he owned tucked beneath the plank: shoes and radio, a wooden box, a piece of chain.

  “Look what the cat dragged in,” Mrs. Hagestead yelled from her kitchen. She acted as if she’d been waiting for Iona. “Man’s been looking for you.” Stanley? Iona wondered. Maybe the police. Mrs. Hagestead didn’t say police. She would, if that’s who it was. Iona climbed the stairs, holding the rail, dragging herself up, one step at a time. Her father. What if her father had found her. No, he wouldn’t come. But he might send Leon. And what would she do if Leon were sitting on her bed when she opened the door. The knife felt heavy in her pocket. After all these years. Would she stab him in the belly, or offer him this small gift.

  The room was empty, dark, the blinds still down. She opened them. The street was deserted. No one was coming for her. She set her cigarettes and saucer on the floor beside the bed so she wouldn’t have to get up if she wanted to smoke. She wanted a cigarette right now but knew she’d be asleep by the third drag. Then she’d be a story in a newspaper: Girl Sets Rooming House Fire. There might be a photograph of Frank Moon. She imagined him, blinded by the flash. Smoker Was Teenage Runaway from Idaho. People would feel sorry for him, bewildered father of a wayward girl. They’d say he lost his wife less than a year ago. And now this. Lost his wife. Why didn’t he look for her? Iona saw him gazing out his window. Yes, she was sure of it. He saw her leave, saw her duck out of the barn and run toward the truck, suitcase in her hand, poncho flying. Why didn’t he call her name? She pulled the blanket to her chin. She still wore her jacket and her shoes, but she was cold. So cold.

  Wind roared and snow blew in her face. She was on her knees and Leon was beside her. They were going to die. They might be two miles from home or two hundred feet. But it didn’t matter, because they couldn’t see an inch in front of their faces. She lay down in the powder but wasn’t cold, not at all; even the snow itself didn’t feel cold. She pulled herself out of the dream. The wind still howled. She was in her bed. Sun streamed through the window. Not wind, only the growl of the vacuum in the room upstairs.

  She reached for the cigarettes. She was thirsty too. There were four Cokes on the dresser, the last of the supply, but she didn’t want to leave the bed to get one. She saw the doll in the chair and said, “Bring me one of those Cokes, will you?” She smiled. Good joke. She knew the doll couldn’t bring her the pop. “I’m not that crazy,” she said. “I know you don’t have any legs.”

  She leaned over the bed to snub out the cigarette in the saucer. Blood rushed, left her body, filled her brain. If she fell, who would pick her up? She burrowed down under her covers. I’ll show you something. She crawled into the cave with Matthew. They weren’t ever coming out. Rain battered the roof until the ground softened and collapsed around them.

  Someone knocked at the door. The Scavenger Lady looking for money. What had she left this time? A legbone, a skull. I think this is yours. Iona slept. I don’t need it. I don’t need anything now.

  When she woke again, the room was almost dark, her throat so dry it hurt. But if I drink a Coke, she thought, I’ll have to pee; I’ll have to leave the room. She was hungry too. Her stomach hurt. Bodies were too much trouble.

  She closed her eyes. Hannah cried as Iona lifted the bedpan to slide it under her buttocks. I’d rather piss the bed. The doors of her house blew open. Snow drifted into the hallway, filled the silent living room. Angel was still alive; Angel bore another calf that grew to have eight teats and gave forty quarts of milk a day, just like Hannah said. Iona kicked the blanket from the bed and it fell in a heap on the floor. “Let me have my own dreams,” she whispered.

  The chill was gone. She was hot now. I almost burned my hand when I touched her. Sharla tore the sheet away from her naked body. Her legs were streaked with blood. Iona put her hands on her own damp thighs. I’d rather piss the bed. She scolded Matthew. Are you too lazy to step outside and unzip your pants?

  Hannah sat on the edge of the bed to tell her the story of a man cursed to live as a bear by day and a man by night. He had a young man’s longing for a beautiful girl, a desire so strong it nearly broke his great bear heart. The witch who’d cursed him said he might be a man again if he could make the girl love him as a bear.

  He carried her into the woods and was kind to her, kept her warm against his fur, fed her fish and berries. But she didn’t love him. She was afraid of his huge paws and hated his bear smell.

  She slept beside him because she was cold and needed him. One night she woke and saw a man, a beautiful man with a red mouth.

  She kissed that mouth.

  He opened his eyes and wept. Now there’s no chance, he said.

  The sun rose behind the trees. The sky turned pink. Hair grew on his face and back. He couldn’t speak.

  Why didn’t he wait till night, Iona said, to be a man again?

  Because he needed the girl to love him just as he was.

  Couldn’t she learn to love him?

  I don’t know, Hannah said.

  Why not?

  He left her there; he walked into the woods, still weeping.

  Maybe she found him.

  The hunters found him first.

  What do you mean?
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  They shot a bear, Hannah said, and found a man in the snow.

  But it was still day.

  It is the wounded heart that makes us human in the end.

  Everyone she’d ever known was close, crowded in this room. Hannah cradled the legless baby; Sharla curled on the floor. Her three brothers found her sock dolls and untied their necks. Frank stood at the window, his back turned. Matthew pulled the hair from her mouth.

  The air beside her bed thickened and grew darker; the body of a man kept sliding in and out of focus. Finally Everett lay down beside her. I know exactly how you feel, he said. He rocked her in his arms. His breath was sweet, like cinnamon. His skin smelled of almonds. She touched the back of his head. The skull wasn’t shattered. I’m whole, he said, pressing himself against her thighs, I’m whole. She let herself fall. Now it was safe to sleep. Everett would catch her.

  Someone had curled inside her head and was using a hammer to beat his way out. She felt him pound on her temple again and again, always in the same place. The sound became a light, a bright crevasse opening in her brain. Everett was gone, and the smell he’d left behind was sharp as acid.

  “Open up.” Now the pounding was outside of her and had a voice she almost recognized. “I’ve got a key.” Iona didn’t care. “I’m coming in.” She wondered who needed a key. Last night her room had been full, and no one used the door, no one asked before he entered.

  The door split. Two shapes filled the entryway, a squat woman, a tall man.