Man in the Moon

by Dotti Enderle

  Just then a dog howled in the distance and both Buddy and Mr. Lunas perked up.

  “I wonder what that crazy old hound’s howling about,” Daddy said, taking a sip of iced tea.

  Mr. Lunas tapped on the arm of his chair. “Do you know why dogs bark at the moon?”

  No one answered because he was looking at me. I had no choice but to speak up. “No sir, I don’t.”

  “Because they’re smarter than people,” he said.

  What a bunch of bullcorn! Dogs, smarter than people? Then why don’t dogs go to school or get jobs or drive cars? Why doesn’t Buddy sleep in the house while we sleep in the dirt? Why don’t dogs dip themselves in creosote to get rid of fleas? And I swear I’ve never once seen a dog open his own box of Gravy Train. Of course I didn’t say none of that. I simply asked, “How are dogs smarter than people?”

  “Over the years, people have complicated their lives,” Mr. Lunas said, looking back up at the stars. “In their quest to better themselves, they’ve forgotten where they came from. How they got here, and why they came at all. They invented ink and paper and pens to keep track, but somewhere in the distant past, they lost all memory. Dogs don’t need history books. They know what’s important. They’re filled with memories of their early existence, from the most vicious wolf to the tamest poodle. They know something people don’t.”

  Mama fanned herself harder and rolled her eyes at me. I guess she thought Mr. Lunas was a loony, too.

  Daddy stretched. “Well, I may not be as smart as a dog, but I know when mosquitoes are winning a battle with my hide. I’m going in.”

  We all gathered ourselves up and walked to the back porch. All except Mr. Lunas. He stretched his legs out in front of him like he was going to camp out in that chair. A breeze blew through, shaking the cornstalks. He closed his eyes and smiled like that sound was a fancy orchestra playing his favorite song. The whole business gave me the chills, even though it must have been eighty-five degrees outside. Mr. Lunas was the oddest fellow I’d ever met.

  I didn’t bother propping a chair under my doorknob that night. I sat with the light out, looking through my bedroom window. I could see Mr. Lunas, still leaning back in the chair. Buddy would circle him a few times, put his front paws up on his lap, then go to circling him again, like he wanted his attention or was trying to tell him something. Mr. Lunas never looked down at Buddy. He’d just reach his hand out and rub Buddy’s fur. Buddy would pant and whine a little. He’d nudge at Mr. Lunas, like a puppy wanting to play. I’d never seen Buddy take to someone the way he did this silly-looking old man. Maybe it was because Mr. Lunas thought dogs were smarter than people and Buddy could sense that. Who knows? But I did know one thing for sure. If a dog likes somebody, he can’t be all that bad.

  My eyes started drooping, so I crawled into bed. The night was too hot for covers. I lay there looking out the window at the fireflies with their little searchlights blinking. A million crickets sang through the pasture. A couple of June bugs bounced into the window screen, and just as I dozed off I heard something that froze my blood again. In the five years we’d owned Buddy, I’d heard him bark, growl, and whimper. But tonight he did something I’ve never heard him do. He howled at the moon.

  Phase Four—Waxing Gibbous

  The moon was getting rounder, and so was Mr. Lunas. Mama took to hiding food like a squirrel storing nuts for the winter. I could hear her and Daddy arguing late at night. Mama would say that Mr. Lunas was a freeloader and that he had to go. Daddy would jump back at her, insisting that Mr. Lunas was a war hero who deserved our respect and our food. He’d tell Mama that once he got a job, she wouldn’t be so tense. Then she’d start off on why hadn’t he found a job yet, and that digging ditches was respectable work too, why didn’t he do that? That’s about when I’d cover my head with a pillow to block it all out.

  I stopped being curious about Mr. Lunas. No sense looking out the bedroom window. He was out there, night after night. Sometimes he sat, sometimes he stood. But his fascination with the moon and sky never changed. It just wasn’t right for a grown man to act the way he did. What the heck did he see up there that we didn’t? I craned my neck, trying to look up too. The window screen pressed hard against my forehead, and I could only stretch it a tiny bit. I couldn’t see whatever it was that Mr. Lunas saw, but I was really aching to. Maybe tomorrow I’d ask him.

  When I woke up, the sky was hidden behind gray clouds. The air smelled as damp as the laundry that Mama had hung out on the line. The temperature must have been ten degrees cooler, which made Ricky’s grin almost as big as Mr. Lunas’s growing belly. He nudged me and said, “I bet Mama lets me go outside today.”

  Mama stood in her bedroom, ironing clothes. She had the radio tuned to the hillbilly station, and the music crackled each time the sky rumbled from the distant storm.

  Ricky put on his “Please, Mama?” face and looked at her with big eyes.

  “It’s cool outside today, Mama. You feel it?”

  Mama guided the iron over the pillowcase like we were invisible. Her forehead was beaded with sweat, even though a gusty wind caused her bedroom curtains to wave and flap. Ricky gave me a look and shrugged.

  Mama sighed. “Go on! I have to hurry and finish this ironing before it comes a storm. I don’t want to get electrocuted.”

  As we ran out of her room we heard her call, “But get yourselves back in here before the first drop falls, you hear me?”

  We scampered out like two rabbits racing for cabbage. We passed Mr. Lunas, sitting on the back porch. He’d gained so much weight that he filled the whole chair.

  “What’re you young ’uns up to today?”

  Ricky bounced and jumped like he’d been tied down for a month. “I get to play outside!” The word outside echoed through the brown pasture.

  “Good for you,” Mr. Lunas said. He tapped his foot and strummed his fingers on the arm of the chair. Mama’s radio was turned too low for us to hear, so I couldn’t help wondering what kind of song was playing in his head.

  Ricky and I raced to the shade tree, Ricky tagging it first.

  “Beat ya,” he said, leaning forward, hands on hips.

  I rolled my eyes at him. “I let you win.”

  “Uh-unh,” he said, not buying it. He swallowed a deep breath, then let it out slow. “Janine, Daddy ain’t ever going to buy me a go-cart.”

  “I told you so, didn’t I?”

  “Yeah,” he said, looking sassy. “That’s why I’m gonna build one.”

  I swear that boy had mush for brains. “Bullcorn. You can’t build a go-cart. You don’t know how.”

  “Yes, I do,” he said, his skinny little body bouncing like a puppet.

  “And what are you going to make it out of?”

  Ricky didn’t say a word. He just looked at the old flatbed truck sitting in the pasture.

  “Why, that ain’t nothing but a bunch of junk!”

  “Right,” he said. “But I bet there’s enough junk piled there to put together a go-cart.”

  I shook my head. I didn’t know how he could possibly make a go-cart out of a heap of trash. “What are you going to use for a motor?”

  “It don’t need a motor, silly. We’ll glide down the hill out front, just like we used to do with that old cardboard box Daddy left in the barn.”

  I have to admit, that cardboard box was a lot of fun, even though it was a bumpy ride without much to hold on to. “Let’s go!”

  As soon as we started running, Buddy came loping behind. I was happy to see him. For a while there, I thought he’d become Mr. Lunas’s dog.

  The sky was getting darker, but we didn’t care. It only made the air cooler. I just knew God wouldn’t let it rain while we were on a mission to find go-cart pieces. We’d spent too many days inside. He had to know that.

  Ricky didn’t waste any time climbing onto the truck. A piece of wire caught in the toe of his sandals, but he jerked it off and threw it to the side. He dug into that trash, reaching in and fli
nging things off like there was gold buried underneath. “Here!” he said, pulling up a long flat board. “We can use this.” He leaned over and tossed it to the ground.

  I started searching too, but I had no clue what to look for. I knew that Ricky had his go-cart designed in his head, and if I tried showing him what I thought would make a good one, he’d probably laugh and accuse me of having mush for brains. I figured it was safest to ask. “What do we need to build it?”

  “Boards and wheels. Like these!” He pulled out the frame of an old baby buggy. The four rubber wheels still looked good, even though the spokes were freckled with brown rust. He tossed it on top of the board.

  We worked for a good fifteen minutes with the clouds threatening to cry on us. I hurried, wondering what Mama would do to me if I brought Ricky home soaking wet.

  Finally Ricky said, “That should be enough. I think Daddy has some rope in the barn.”

  Rope? Why the heck did we need rope for a go-cart? I nodded like I knew what he was talking about. I didn’t want him to take time explaining it while the sky decided to let loose. We piled the boards on top of the buggy frame and scooted it across the pasture. The wheels were too rusty to roll, so it made long ridges in the dirt. Every once in a while it’d get caught on a clump of weeds and we’d have to lift it over. Buddy marched along next to us, his fluffy tail waving like a flag.

  As we got to the barn, the buggy bumped against a knot of dirt that was harder than a brick. The boards shifted and almost fell. I jerked my foot up to brace the buggy so it wouldn’t tilt. But that was a huge mistake. I caught my sole on a jagged piece of metal that was jutting out, and it cut a big gash right across the bottom of my foot.

  “Shoot!” I yelled, dropping on my bottom and cradling my foot. It stung like I’d stuck it in a hornet’s nest. Blood oozed up, then dripped down. I couldn’t believe it. I’d been so careful not to step on the sticker patch, and now this.

  “Can you make it to the house?” Ricky asked, his face looking scared and weak.

  “Yeah.” I picked myself up and limped toward the yard, walking on the heel of my foot. I left a trail of blood as I went.

  I stayed out back while Ricky went in to get Mama. “Oh lands!” she cried, rushing back inside to get a wet washrag. As I plopped down on the back-porch steps, Mr. Lunas appeared from behind the chicken coop, staring at my foot like he’d never seen one before. I scrunched it closer to me, careful not to get blood on my shorts.

  Mama came out with a dripping blue rag and wrapped it around my foot, squeezing it tight. She got on her knees and closed her eyes, rocking back and forth, speaking softly. Of course I knew she wasn’t praying. She was reciting from the Bible. Ezekiel 16:6. Mama said those were the healing words to stop bleeding. But I was wishing she knew the healing words to stop lockjaw. I kept working my mouth, open and shut, around and around, wondering how long it’d take me to starve to death.

  Mama opened her eyes and narrowed them at me. “See what happens when you don’t wear shoes!”

  “Will I have to get a shot?” I asked, trying not to cry.

  “Maybe,” she said, the word dragging out of her mouth real slow.

  Ricky and Mr. Lunas both leaned forward, watching what was going on. The blue washrag on my foot turned an ugly shade of purple as more and more blood soaked through. Mama started reciting Ezekiel again. Mr. Lunas smiled as he reached out and wiggled my big toe. “You’ll be all right.” His fingers felt rough, but the wiggle wasn’t so bad. Sort of like one of those nursery rhyme wiggles.

  “Yeah,” Ricky said, acting all smug. “And if you do get a shot, they’ll only use a needle about the size of your foot.” He held his hands wide apart like he was measuring my foot; then his mouth turned up in a weasel-like grin. “Ouch!”

  “Not funny!” I reached my hand out to swat him, but Mama was still rocking and reciting, and I didn’t want to accidentally hit her. I decided to take a look at the cut instead.

  “Mama, you can stop now. It worked.” The cut looked like a pink toothless mouth smiling up at me. The only blood left was on the rag.

  “Good,” Mama said. “Now let’s go to the bathroom and doctor it with Mercurochrome. And don’t ever let me catch you trying to hit your brother again.”

  Sigh.

  As soon as Mama finished bandaging my foot, I went out to the back porch and sat down. The clouds were getting thicker and the sky looked like one huge shadow. I could see Ricky out under the shade tree. He was trying to pull the wheels off that junky old baby buggy. He braced his feet against it, jerking on a wheel with the back end of a claw hammer. I kept wondering if it might accidentally slip and hit him in the head, like something out of The Three Stooges. It never slipped, but the wheel didn’t come off, either. Ricky pulled his foot back and kicked the buggy hard.

  Then Mr. Lunas appeared right there beside him, bending down and pointing a finger. I guess he was giving Ricky some suggestions on getting those wheels loose. He reached over and spun the buggy wheel. Not hard, though, just about the speed of a record playing on a hi-fi—a scratchy record with a lot of scrapes and squeaks.

  Mr. Lunas held out an oil can.

  The wheel turned and turned, and Ricky stared at it. Mr. Lunas was right up next to Ricky’s ear, whispering something, I think. Ricky just kept staring at that wheel. I wondered what was so fascinating about it. Everybody had seen wheels turning before. I looked at the spinning wheel too. It turned so fast that you couldn’t tell it had spokes—just one solid circle, whirling on its own. Ricky took the oil can and shot a few squirts into the center of the wheel. The scrapes and squeaks mellowed out, but the wheel kept its momentum. We all kept staring at it. Ricky seemed hypnotized, but all that whirling was making me dizzy. Eventually the wheel slowed to a stop, and Mr. Lunas stood up. Then, just like that, Ricky reached over with that hammer and popped that wheel right off the buggy.

  “Wooooooooo!” he shouted, holding the wheel up high. I guess oil was the magic potion Ricky hadn’t thought of. Mr. Lunas had saved the day. Then a clap of thunder rolled across the sky, shaking the rain out of the clouds. Ricky dropped the wheel, covered his head with his arms, and ran for the porch. Mr. Lunas, with his large belly, waddled in behind him.

  “Stop!” I said to Ricky as he shook his hands, flinging water drops at me. Ricky grinned and rubbed his damp hair.

  Mr. Lunas sat down in the chair across from me, looking out toward the field. “This rain is good for the corn,” he said.

  I looked at the towering stalks, which were turning a copper brown. I heard the chickens fluttering in the coop. The cows gave off a low moo, like they were singing praises in a church choir. The wind picked up and the rain blew in through the screen.

  Mr. Lunas nodded. “Yep, this is good for Earth.”

  I suddenly felt prickles as the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. It could have been from the electrical storm, or it could’ve been the way Mr. Lunas had said the word Earth. Like it was a foreign country.

  Phase Five—Full Moon

  It rained all the next day, so Ricky and I spent most of the time in the cave under the piano. We tossed M&M’s at each other, our mouths the target. I got three in a row into Ricky’s mouth. When it was his turn he got two into mine, but then he played a trick on me.

  “Ready?” he asked, looking like he was concentrating on his aim.

  “Ready,” I said, stretching my mouth wide open.

  But instead of one M&M, Ricky threw a handful. A dozen candy-coated dots flashed in front of my eyes and bounced off my cheeks and chin. “Hey!”

  Ricky doubled over laughing. “You should have seen the look on your face!” He couldn’t seem to stop laughing. “Your eyes were bigger than drums.”

  “You didn’t fool me, you little twerp,” I lied. “I knew you were going to throw a bunch.”

  “Did not,” he said, calming down and hugging his knees.

  I started picking up the M&M’s we’d dropped. Some were hidden in the crease
s in my shorts. When I looked back at Ricky, he’d totally changed. He stared out across the room, his face sad, like he’d just lost his best friend.

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  Ricky sighed. “It stinks.”

  I sniffed the air.

  “No, I mean it stinks that I can’t go outside.”

  “It’s raining, dummy,” I said, seeing the sheets of water washing down the living room windows.

  “I know. But I can’t go out when it’s sunny. I can’t go out when it’s rainy. I can’t go out when it’s cold.” He slumped forward and gave me a gloomy look. “I guess I’ll be trapped inside for the rest of my life.”

  Usually I would have sung him my sad song about how I couldn’t do nothing most of the time because of his skinny little existence, but he looked about as droopy as a wet noodle. I didn’t think it’d be smart to get him all agitated. I actually found myself wanting to cheer him up; I just wasn’t sure if the right words would spill out. “What would you want to go outside for, anyway? It’s muddy and wet and the ground is probably as squishy as oatmeal. I wouldn’t want to be out there right now.”

  “But the barn’s dry,” he said. “I could build my go-cart in there.”

  “When it stops raining we’ll ask Mama. I’ll even help you build it.”

  He nodded an okay, which surprised the heck out of me because I didn’t think he’d want a girl’s help. And I doubted I could come up with any practical ideas, like using an oil can. But I nodded back. “Deal.”

  Then, before I knew what was happening, he flung another handful of M&M’s at me. So much for being a sympathetic sister.

  Because it was Sunday, Daddy was home, stretched out on the couch watching the Dallas Cowboys play football on TV. An Orange Crush soda bottle sat on the coffee table, wrapped in a cup towel. But if you got close enough, you could smell that it wasn’t Orange Crush in the bottle. And every time Daddy took a sip, he’d wipe some foam off his mouth. It’s a good thing Mama didn’t like football because Daddy would for sure have gotten caught sneaking that beer into the house.