Moonglow

by Michael Griffo

  Huge oak, about twenty or twenty-five-feet tall according to the locals. Remember, I’m not that great in math, so I’m taking them at their word. This time of year The Weeping Lady still looks like she’s in her prime; her thick, sturdy branches are the home for rows and rows of hearty-looking leaves. Come late November she’ll look old and bare, like a fading monument in a patch of parched earth. Today she looks grand and deserving of both solitude and admiration.

  The Weeping part of her name is obvious—it’s a tribute to the town’s name; the Lady part not so much, unless you’re looking at the tree at night. When the moon shines through the tree, a cluster of branches on its right side creates the silhouette of a woman. Nobody believes it until they see it; then they still can’t believe that nature conjured up something that looks man-made. The branches on this little cluster weave and ripple, so it looks like the Lady has long, wavy hair that covers most of her body; when the tree is covered in leaves like today, her hair looks soft and billowy and the most beautiful shade of green. Her profile faces the other side of the tree; what she’s looking at, no one can agree on. Some say she’s gazing at her long-lost lover, some say she’s looking into the eyes of God, while some others think she’s waiting for just the right moment to hang herself. Guess you interpret her action depending upon your point of view of the world.

  The sun shines through the branches of The Weeping Lady, surrounding it with a yellowish haze, making her leaves look less robust and secure and more like a string of light. The woman’s outline isn’t as pronounced as it is in the moonlight, but I know it’s there, so I can make it out. Up until now I never gave her much thought; I never fell into one camp or the other about the origin of her mythology. I took the practical approach and just considered her a tree. But now I can see The Weeping Lady for what she is: lost.

  She’s hanging in between two worlds. She can’t quite touch the earth and make a home and a life for herself here, but she also can’t return to where she was born. I don’t know if that’s the sun or the moon or some distant star, but wherever it is she can’t get back there. On the one hand she’s doomed, forever crying because she’s destined to straddle two worlds, neither of which she can ever call home. On the other hand she’s free, shedding tears of joy because she can travel wherever she wants without feeling the need to put down roots and settle. Suddenly, I feel a connection to this woman, this carving, this image. I feel a breeze pass through me; it’s warm and it feels good, but I don’t know if the wind is agreeing with me or if it’s trying to pry the idiotic thought from my mind.

  I walk diagonally across the Super Saver parking lot, weaving in and out of the parked cars to make my way to Robin Boulevard. Don’t get the wrong idea; there’s no connection between the boulevard and Robineau, my last name, even though I used to think it was named after my father’s family. After all, his ancestors came here from Canada in the middle of the nineteenth century to make their fame as fur traders, so Robineaus have been living in Weeping Water for as long as Weeping Water has had people living in it. But no, Robin Boulevard didn’t get its name to honor a prominent local family, but rather to honor a prominent local bird.

  A long time ago, when they were naming streets, this stretch of land was home to an insanely large number of birds. And by home I mean cemetery. Robin sounds like such a pretty name, conjures up an image of a cute red-breasted bird perched on your finger chirping a happy tune like something out of an animated Disney movie. Truth is real robins are more like something out of one of those Saw movies, incredibly aggressive. Don’t know why, but if a robin were perched on your finger, he’d probably peck at it until your finger was as bloody as its breast. When I found that out, it kind of ruined Snow White for me.

  From what I’ve heard, at some point there must have been some kind of robin bird war, because this patch of land was covered with the corpses of hundreds of robins, bloodied and decapitated and wingless. Rotting corpses strewn across the land, one lying next to the other to create a robin boulevard. Get it? I’m sure in reality there were like five birds that got into a deadly spat over who was going to eat the last chunk of bread that fell from some fur trapper’s satchel, but truth usually doesn’t become legend. Fantasy does. So kudos to the forefathers of my hometown for creating such an interesting, and completely unbelievable, fairy tale. Because fairy tales are supposed to be unbelievable, that’s the only reason we believe in them anyway.

  Even without a connection I still think it’s pretty cool that my name is almost the name of the largest street in town. At the end of the day it doesn’t mean anything, my family doesn’t have any ownership of the street name, but it reminds me that no matter how crazy and disjointed my mind gets, I still have a place in the world. A place that can sometimes feel very, very small.

  At the stoplight is Jess’s mother in her bright yellow Nissan Xterra, which is almost as vibrant as Mrs. Wyatt. Sitting next to her in the passenger seat is Misutakiti, Jess’s German shepherd and her pride and joy. Loosely translated his name is Japanese for Mister Kitty; he’s named after one of that country’s most famous exports and Jess’s all-time favorite pop-culture icon, Hello Kitty.

  Misutakiti sees me, but Mrs. Wyatt doesn’t, because she, as usual, is talking on her cell phone, with her hands pointing and gesturing and flying through the air. Misu isn’t moving; he’s up on all fours facing the passenger-side window, staring in my direction. On second thought maybe he hasn’t seen me yet, because when he does he flips out, knowing he’s going to get the best belly rub ever. His tail starts to wag frantically, and he runs in circles, his tongue flopping out of his mouth. Now he looks different.

  His ears are pointed straight up and look like two motionless, multi-colored teepees, black on top, gradually turning to brown at the base. His entire body, in fact, is stock still, and his beautiful eyes—one blue, one black—are staring straight ahead.

  “Hello, Misutakiti!” I say in my singsongy voice, reserved for when I’m talking to dogs and babies, even though I know he won’t be able to hear me from where I’m standing.

  He might not have heard me, but he does respond. Just not in the way I expected. Bam! One huge paw hits the window. Bam! The other huge paw hits it even harder. His paws start to move quickly, pounding against the glass as if they were clawing at dirt and he was on a mission to bury a bone. The only reason I can’t hear his nails scratching against the window is that he’s barking too loudly. I stop waving when I realize this isn’t Misu’s typical “Hello, rub my belly” bark; this is his “I want to get the hell out of this car and attack you” bark.

  “Misu, it’s me, Dominy.”

  Personal identification doesn’t temper Misu’s barking; if anything, it intensifies it. Despite the sound’s being muffled by the car windows, I can still hear how gruff and deep and hostile it is. And the dog’s posture matches his sound. He’s not his usual flopsy-mopsy self; his body is rigid and ready to pounce. But why would he want to pounce on me? He loves me almost as much as he loves Jess. Probably even more because I bring him people food all the time.

  A quick look around shows that there isn’t a stray deer behind me or a lost rabbit nearby that Misu would like to turn into an afternoon snack; the area’s deserted. No, Misu’s rabid barking is directed at me. I can see Mrs. Wyatt’s hand motions change, and now she’s slapping Misu on his backside to get him to shut up. Oh that must be it! He must want me to help him get out of that car because he’s tired of hearing her yak on the phone.

  “Hi, Mrs. Wyatt!” I shout.

  I wave back, but not nearly as wildly as she’s waving at me. Her mouth is moving, but I can’t hear her and, of course, I’m not sure if she’s talking to me, Misu, or the person on the other end of her cell phone line. Doesn’t really matter because the only thing anyone can hear is Misu’s harsh barking, which hasn’t diminished in intensity since he started. Poor thing, he really wants his freedom. When the light turns green and Mrs. Wyatt pulls away, Misu leaps into the backseat,
his body rigid and unwavering, his mouth opening and closing in a steady barking rhythm, begging me to rescue him. Sorry, Misu, unfortunately your place in the world is next to a woman who never shuts up.

  My father’s place in the world is directly across the street, in the police station. It stands right on the corner, but the entrance to his office is in the back of the building, so I make my way around to the rear. When I hear my name, I stop underneath the window.

  “I’m worried about Dominy,” he says.

  “Why? She do something wrong?”

  The other voice belongs to Louis Bergeron, his deputy. Another local of French Canadian ancestry, but with some Creole mixed in, so his name is pronounced without the “s” at the end. Louis is loud and fun and not at all an authority figure, but he’s my dad’s best friend, so I guess that’s how he became the deputy. His daughter Arla is pretty much the same way, loud and lots of fun, but as one of the best athletes on our little high school campus, she cuts a more authoritative figure at school than her father does in town.

  “No, she hasn’t done anything wrong,” my father says, “but I . . . I just think she might.”

  The drawer of a filing cabinet slams shut. “Of course she will,” Louis replies. “She’s a teenager; that’s what they do.”

  No one’s talking now, and I stupidly press my ear up against the brick on the side of the building, as if that’s going to help me hear their conversation better, like putting my ear up to a glass on an apartment wall, which I don’t think works either, by the way. Acting more logically I walk around the back and see what I had expected, that the screen door is closed, but the main door is wide open. Standing just off to the side of the screen is a much more effective way to listen in on their conversation.

  There’s a high-pitched whistling sound that I figure must be from the wheels of my dad’s chair rolling across the hardwood floor. “Not the usual stuff, something more,” my father says.

  This is how he spends his day? Imagining that I’m going to do something terrible?

  Now there are some clinking sounds that get drowned out by Louis’s voice before I can identify them. “One job isn’t good enough for you?” he asks. “Now you want to be the town psychic too?”

  “It’s just a feeling I have.”

  My father speaks slowly, choosing his words deliberately. He’s lying, hiding something like he was this morning. It’s more than just a feeling; he knows something.

  “Mason, do yourself a favor and don’t make things up,” Louis says. “My Arla can be a handful sometimes, don’t I know it, but she and Dominy aren’t gonna screw up; they’re both good kids.”

  “Dominy is good,” my father replies. “For now.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Louis asks.

  “Yeah, Dad, what’s that supposed to mean?”

  The screen door slams behind me. I didn’t plan it, but it makes my sudden entrance that much more dramatic. Jess would be proud. My father isn’t; he looks the same way he did this morning, like I’ve caught him doing or thinking something that he wants to keep far away from me.

  “Dominy,” he says. “What are you doing here?”

  His tone of voice doesn’t match his expression. Mildly inquisitive doesn’t equal frightened.

  “Hey, Dom,” Louis calls out, raising his cup of coffee. My eyes involuntarily shift to take in the coffeemaker, and I know what was making the clinking sounds. One mystery solved.

  “I asked you a question, Dad.” The fact that I don’t cringe even though I sound as whiny as Barnaby did this morning makes me realize that I’m madder than I thought. After the way I acted yesterday and this morning, my father’s proven to be a pretty good psychic; in all probability I am destined to do something seriously bad. But I don’t want logic; I want an answer. “What do you mean I’m good . . . for now?”

  My father is fifty-two years old, much younger-looking than Louis, who is a decade his junior and much younger looking from what Jess and Arla tell me, but now he looks impossibly young. It’s not a physical thing; it’s more an emotional state. He looks innocent and pure, the way I should look and feel, but don’t. There isn’t a mirror in sight, but the one feature I know we have in common is that we both look scared.

  “I didn’t know you were there,” he replies. His voice is meek, and I know that down deep I love him, but right now I can’t stand him, because he’s acting like a jerk.

  “That’s not an answer!” I tell him.

  I’m completely focused on my father, so I don’t notice Louis has moved until he’s standing right in my line of vision, and it’s not a pretty sight. His rough features—an oddly bent nose, and an array of scars on his cheeks and chin that are tiny but highly visible on his dark black skin—seem grossly exaggerated as his face reels back in shock. I guess my voice is kind of loud and out of control. I’m not acting the way a sheriff’s daughter is expected to act. Or sound.

  “Barnaby was right,” I growl. “If you act the same way as sheriff as you do as a father, you suck at your job!”

  Voices trail after me, but I can’t make out any words because the screen door slams so loudly behind me the noise blocks them out. Sends the birds scattering too. If there are any robins around, they can go claw themselves to death and leave a bloody trail from their war zone straight to my father’s desk. And there won’t be any need for them to worry because he won’t say anything about the mess.

  Two hours later and I’m still staring at the same page in my textbook. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s writing is incomprehensible. If he were here in my bedroom right now, I’d write the letter A on a piece of paper and staple it to his chest, tell him he wasted his time being an author, and then push him out the window. I’m about to fling the book across my room when someone knocks on my door. Has to be my father; Barnaby has no manners.

  A part of me melts when I see my father standing in my doorway. A part of me is always going to be his little girl, the one who still wants to hold his hand or turn around to make sure he’s nearby and watching me, no matter where I might be. Another part of me wants to slap him across the face.

  He closes the door behind him. It’s a slow, deliberate move, so it comes off as awkward. “Can we talk?” he asks.

  “I tried to do that earlier,” I reply. Of course I didn’t fill my reply with enough sarcasm; have to compound it. “Did it take you this long to come up with something to say?”

  He sits on the edge of my bed and places his hands on his knees. The backs of his hands are very smooth, completely unlike the palms, which are calloused and rough. He’s never been in a fight, not on the job or off, but he’s worked outside most of his life, building houses, chopping down trees for firewood, planting crops even, and his hands tell an intricate story. But he likes to keep that story hidden and only let the world see the smoothness outside, let the world believe in his perfection; that way he thinks he’s the only one who can see the cracks in his armor. Unfortunately, I see them too.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. That’s it. Sorry that he thinks his daughter is some kind of bad seed waiting to blossom into full grown evil.

  “Doesn’t really explain your comment.”

  “I know,” he agrees. Well, that’s good; at least I know I’m right to be pissed off.

  I want to try a different tactic and keep quiet so he will divulge the real reason behind his words, but I’m too angry and I can’t keep my mouth shut. “That’s all you’ve got? Sorry? Why would you say such a thing about me?”

  My questions don’t seem to make much of an impression until my father lifts his head. He’s been crying. His eyes are still red and a little wet. I want to take back everything I said and just run into his arms, because I can remember the last time I saw my father cry, and my heart still hasn’t completely mended from the sight. He’s not the jerk; I am, because despite how I feel I can’t manage to lift myself off the chair and embrace him like I know he wants me to. I stay put.

  “It had nothing to
do with you, Dominy,” he says. “It has everything to do with me.”

  He doesn’t say another word; he doesn’t offer up any more information to convince me that what he’s saying is the truth, but he doesn’t have to because I believe him. I don’t understand it at all, but I believe every word of it. Just as he’s leaving my bedroom, I see some flecks of gray hair at his temple that I never noticed before; they’re like the hair by my ears, sudden and wrong. Walking out of my bedroom, hunched over, my father now looks old, not the young man I saw in his office this afternoon, and for the first time I realize he’s going to leave me someday. And I instantly hate him.

  I run to my door with every intention of opening it up and screaming after him to tell him that, but I can’t. He’s always said you don’t kick a man when he’s down, and my father resembles a man who got tossed in the gutter. How he got there doesn’t matter, but he’s lying there in the dirt, the water that flows into the sewer trickling past his face, some drops latching onto his lips, slithering into his mouth, and poisoning his body. Instead, I shut the door tight.

  Roughly, I grab a framed photo of my father and me from a few years ago at some police function, I can’t remember which one, but it was during the summer, so we’re wearing T-shirts and shorts. My father looks so handsome and young; his brown hair doesn’t show a trace of gray, and it’s cut short against his face, a face that’s clean and unwrinkled, nothing like Louis’s. His blue eyes are alive and happy and looking at me instead of the camera. He’s smiling at me, but is he also waiting for me to do something wrong? Did he know then that I would make every one of his bad dreams come true?