There's Blood on the Moon Tonight

by Bryn Roar

  Frank stuck his hand in the large callused grip of the fisherman, where it swallowed his whole.

  “Good afternoon, sir. I’m Frank Tolson. This is my wife, Emma, and my son, Ralph.”

  “Tolson? You the folks bought the old Moonlite?”

  Emma looked to her husband. “The moon light?”

  “The Moonlite Drive-In,” Frank replied, patting his wife’s arm. “Yes sir, Mr. Huggins; that’s us. I hope we can expect your business once we get her dolled up.”

  Ham finally released Frank’s hand after nearly shaking it off his arm. “Oh, you can count on it! My wife and I spent many a magical night there before it closed down. I was happy to hear the old owner, Saul Grimes, finally found someone to buy the place. He was a crotchety old coot. Closed the theater just to spite the young folks, I believe. You won’t be short of business, Frank. And call me Ham. Only Mr. Huggins I knows was my daddy.”

  “Thank you, Ham. Are you a fisherman by trade?”

  “That I am,” Ham said, smiling. “Biggest and best boat on Moon.” He saw the questioning looks on their faces. “So why’m I riding on this here barge?” he chuckled. “Well, I’ve been collecting supplies in Beaufort this morning, and it just makes more sense to take my truck across on the ferry, rather than hiring a taxi to tote me and my sundries about.” He looked down at Tubby.

  “How old is you, son?”

  Tubby liked the way Mr. Ham talked. It might not have been proper English, but the words, spoken in a rich, deep timbre, fairly dripped from the man’s mouth. “Be seventeen in a few months,” he replied shyly.

  “Ralphie will be in the eleventh grade this year,” Emma beamed from ear to ear. “He skipped the ninth grade and went straight to the tenth last year.”

  “You don’t say! Got me a boy just yo age did the very same thing!” Ham laughed delightedly. “Though, I ‘spect he did it to be in the same class as his friends. Name is Rusty, and he be the laziest ray of sunshine you ever did see! He a little bittie fellow, but Rusty’s a fine boy. Smart as a whip, too. Runs circles around his old man!”

  Ham’s booming laughter was so infectious that the Tolsons’ laughed right along with him.

  “You goin’ to the Academy, son?”

  Tubby looked over at his dad.

  “That’s the one,” his father said.

  “Actually, that’s the only one,” Ham chortled.

  “Is that the High School?” Emma asked.

  “Moon River Academy is the only school on the island, ma’am. From first to twelfth grade. It be a private school, too.” Ham’s chest puffed out in pride. “State won’t come out to ol’ Moon. So every citizen on the island, even those with no children, pays a bit more taxes to educate the young uns. Now ain’t that something?”

  Emma wiped a tear from her eye. She had just met the first person from Moon Island and he couldn’t have been any sweeter. “It certainly is, Mr. Ham.”

  Ham noticed Emma’s tears, and he looked to Frank, his dark brown eyes full of concern. Frank gave him a shrug, as if to say: She does this all the time. She’ll be fine.

  As if he had one at home just like her, Ham nodded and smiled. “Soon as you folks get settled in, come on by and see us. Ours is the big log cabin, out by the candy cane lighthouse. The very end of Huggins Way. Just a hop, skip, and a jump from your place down the road. My wife Betty Anne is the finest cook on Moon, and she’ll be all mighty mad at me if’n I didn’t invite you to supper!” He gave Frank his business card with his home address and phone number on it. “Say a week from this Saturday?”

  Frank did a double take on the business card. According to the fine print, Ham Huggins not only owned the largest shrimp boat on Moon, but most of the available land on the island as well. He admonished himself for judging the man by his cornpone vernacular. Uneducated, Ham might be, but no flies were resting on this big fellow.

  Frank gave Emma an inquiring look.

  “We’d be delighted, Mr. Ham,” she smiled. “Tell your wife I’ll call her later to thank her personally.”

  Ham returned the smile and was on his way.

  Emma looked up to see the island had snuck up on them. “There it is! There it is!” she cried.

  A rocky shore lined Moon’s narrow sandy beach—leftovers from the Army Corp of Engineers, to help ease the erosion problems on certain sections of the steep shoreline. Overhead, tall pine trees waved lazily in the stiff breeze; they towered over smaller palms and palmettos, which themselves looked over undulating saw grass and sea oats, growing over the sparse but hilly sand dunes.

  Moon Island jutted out of the ocean like the rounded crest of a Blue Ridge hilltop, the shores spreading outward like a soft sandy skirt.

  The elevation was indeed higher than Beaufort’s, across the way. According to the former owner of the theater, the island had never known a devastating storm surge; at least not to anyone’s recollection. Some folks even had cellars beneath their homes, the water table far enough below to allow such an unheard luxury on an island out to sea. Low Country style homes peeked out from behind the dense trees; some grand in scale, most no bigger than a summer cottage on a lake.

  Picturesque was putting it mildly.

  Frank put his arms around his family and beamed proudly as their permanent home grew into sharp focus. A flock of seagulls gave a raucous welcome overhead as The Moon Beam powered down her engines.

  They were entering a harbor that reminded Frank of his summers as a boy in the coastal towns of Maine. A church steeple rose high above the masts in the harbor, letting you know right away where this community’s priorities lay: the Good Lord and His Almighty Sea. From his previous visit, Frank knew it to be the only church on Moon. The non-denominational Christian temple sat alongside other white stucco buildings overlooking the deep and natural harbor. Among them, a marine gas station that was also the only supplier of automobile gasoline on the island; a touristy T-shirt shop, open only during the spring and summer months; the Harbor Master’s office, and a combination sandwich shop/ice cream parlor called Moon Island Treats. Frank informed his family that it and another diner in town called Peg Leg Pete’s were the only restaurants on Moon Island.

  Tubby looked stricken. What the what? No McDonalds! Jeepers! What kind of hick town is this?

  Frank pointed out the boardwalk, which horseshoed the harbor. “On the other side of those buildings is the Sheriff’s Office, Post Office, Town Hall, Doctor’s office and the Volunteer Fire Department. The last time I was here the volunteers were sitting out front underneath the awning, playing checkers on top of an old pickle barrel. I swear, Emma, I thought I’d just stepped into a Norman Rockwell painting!”

  Shrimp boats bobbed alongside an assortment of other working boats. There were few pleasure crafts about. This wasn’t a resort attracting many tourists; it was too far off the beaten track for that. It was a working community, living off the honest coin of its inhabitants. Nothing more, nothing less, and for the first time Frank worried it might not be enough to sustain his dream. In fact, he wondered if the island had charmed him right into the poorhouse!

  At least his wife didn’t seem to be having any second thoughts. As the ferry bumped against the weather-beaten dock of the Moon Island Harbor, Emma couldn’t stop smiling. “Is there a furniture store in town, dear, or are we going back to the mainland for those things?”

  The idea of shopping for brand new furniture and appliances, for her brand new home (brand new to her, anyway), made Emma positively dizzy with delight.

  “You’ll see,” Frank practically giggled.

  Tubby didn’t share his folk’s enthusiasm. As his father guided them back to their car, a strange foreboding came over Ralph. His first glimpse of Moon had been a disconcerting one at that.

  At his mother’s high-pitched squeal, he had looked up to see a shell encrusted pylon sticking out of the water. Like a rotten tooth spilling over an old man’s droopy lip. Nailed to the top of the pylon was a splintered black board with a wor
dless warning. A sloppy painter had outlined a skull and crossbones in dripping white paint. Seagull poop further framed it. Dark and menacing, it looked like the warning label on a bottle of poison, or a pirate’s flag. Even if you were a little kid who couldn’t read, you knew what the ol’ skull and crossbones meant:Beware! Danger! Stay out! Warning! Death!

  Jeepers, Tubby wondered morosely, maybe those natives were on to something after all.

  Sitting behind his father in their Country Squire station wagon, waiting their turn to disembark, Tubby kept expecting something portentous to happen. Maybe a rumble of thunder from a looming dark cloud. A lick of lightning across the sky. The heavens above, however, remained cloudless, blue, and mute. No sign of bad tidings ahead.

  Their old family roadster passed underneath the entrance of the Moon Island Harbor without injury or incident. Main Street began at the harbor entrance, the lowest elevation on the entire island; a freshly paved road branched off to the left of that, Reva Heights, disappearing around a palmetto tree-lined bend.

  There wasn’t a traffic light in sight.

  In fact, there wasn’t much traffic about, either.

  Frank informed his family that Reva Heights had the nicest properties on Moon, referred to around here as the West End or West Side. To their right, on Town Hall Lane, the street dead-ended on the sands of a peaceful looking beach. Ralph strained his head for a better view. No bikinis in sight. Their station wagon drove straight ahead through the small but quaint business district.

  “Hey, Dad. What was with that skull and crossbones out in the harbor?” Tubby asked, playing it off as bored curiosity.

  “Pretty gruesome, eh?” Frank said, affecting his Peter Lorre chuckle. As always, it made Tubby laugh. “That’s a warning for boaters to stay on course, son. A lot of boats run aground out there—or worse, rip their bottoms out on the old oyster beds.”

  The explanation satisfied Tubby, and as they drove down the main drag, his earlier premonition vanished from his mind. His dad hadn’t been kidding; Moon Island really was like Mayberry out to sea! Tubby kept expecting to see Barney Fife walking his beat, or good old Aunt Bee on her way to the Ladies Auxiliary. Over there was a corner grocery store that wouldn’t have filled the produce section of a Piggly Wiggly back in Atlanta. Right next door to that was a Marine and Hardware store. As the Tolsons’ drove by, an aproned man emerged and began unrolling a green and white awning over the entrance. Eagle’s Dollar and Drug Emporium rolled by next, its immediate neighbor a small but efficient looking bank, then the diner his father had told them about—Peg Leg Pete’s.

  Across the street from all that sat a sprawling, two-story brick department store called Cole’s. Frank assured Emma that she would find a nice selection of home furnishings and appliances there—in fact, they could get started shopping first thing tomorrow. Emma squealed as if she’d just won the state lottery. A beauty/barber shop, a shoe store, a bookstore/coffee shop, and various clothing outlets took up the rest of Main on the right. And while none of them were especially busy, they all appeared to have customers inside.

  The biggest and most impressive building on Moon, and yet the only one devoid of any patrons it seemed, took up a whole block on the left side of the street.

  At first glance, Tubby thought it was a theater.

  The outside of the building looked just like the entrance of a movie house. An old movie theater, that is. One of those Grand Palace kind of deals.

  The blood dripping letters on the marquee proclaimed it to be the Dark Side of the Moon Wax Museum.Jeepers! Now THAT looks promising!

  Tubby stared out his window. It seemed strange to him that a rinky-dink town like Moon should have such a grand wax museum (Heck, there isn’t even a 7-11 here!). He’d been to the Ripley’s Wax Museum in Myrtle Beach—a resort that was at least ten times bigger than Moon—but Ripley’s wasn’t half the size of this mammoth building!

  Tubby wanted to ask his father about the place, but his parents were too engrossed in the particulars of living on the island: The utilities—the water is already turned on, but there’s no cable TV on Moon. Is the power on at the house? Yes, but the phone isn't scheduled to be installed until next week. Is the house move-in ready? Yes and no, dear. The bedrooms, bathrooms, and kitchen are livable (just), but the rest of the place is a mess. Not to mention the disrepair of the lot and concessions building…

  As usual they had their work cut out for them.

  Tubby was leaning up on the front seat, between his mom and dad, when his father abruptly pulled in front of the last store on Main Street, across the road from the wax museum. “Why are we stopping here?” Tubby asked, looking out at the store’s front window display.

  As if unhinged, his mouth dropped open.

  His dad turned around in his seat and grinned at him. Tubby didn’t notice. He couldn’t tear his eyes from the improbable sight before him.

  The plate-glass window had the name of the store painted right on it:MOON MAN’S! it declared mysteriously. No explanation at all as to what the store actually sold. The seven-foot-tall robot in the window, holding several bagged comic books, fanned out like a hand of cards, accomplished that detail quite nicely. A retro looking ray gun, pointed at Tubby, occupied the robot’s other claw. To those in the know, it was an homage to the Comic Book Guy’s store in The Simpsons. Toys from the past took up the rest of the window display, artfully arranged in a loving tableau. Erector sets, fully assembled and running. Lincoln Log forts besieged by miniature tin Indians. Aurora monster models in their original packaging. Uncle Milton’s Ant farms, Magic Eight Balls, Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robots, and G.I. Joes in their ‘60’s military regalia surrounded the ebony robot on all sides. An antique Lionel train set occupied the only space left on the floor. It did a slow figure eight around the robot’s platter-sized feet, its smokestack belching smoke up the robot’s caboose every time it passed underneath the iron giant.

  “Holy Moly Mackinoly!” Tubby intoned, taking it all in with huge eyes. “That’s Robby the Robot!”

  Frank laughed, once again pleased with himself. The first time he saw this comic book store he knew it would be a spectacular hit with Ralph.

  Emma looked bewildered. “Robby the Robot? Ralphie, dear, what is this place? A toy store?”

  Tubby just smiled. He got out of the car, stepped onto the sidewalk, and stared up at the famous robot from the classic film, Forbidden Planet. One of his favorite sci-fi flicks. It couldn’t be the real one, could it?

  Tubby looked past the robot.

  Inside the store, a skinny clerk with a Moe Howard haircut was ringing up some comics for a short black kid. The clerk had on a T-shirt with Goober Pyle on the front, spouting his inimitable impersonation: Judy! Judy! Judy!

  Toys, models, and various memorabilia covered every inch of wall space on one side of the store, while the pitted wood-plank floor was mostly taken up by rectangular tables, loaded down with likewise size boxes; each one crammed to the hilt with comic books, which were them-selves sealed individually in acid-free plastic bags.

  Tubby should know. He’d been in enough of these stores…although none quite like this one. He could practically smell the pulp from out on the sidewalk.

  On the opposite wall was an old-fashioned soda fountain (a prominent sign on the counter decreed: Purchase All Items Before Sitting Down to Order!). Six vinyl-covered stools fronted the gleaming marble counter, from which an older boy and girl sat, sipping from the same large milkshake in front of them. Countering this archaic image was a flank of the most up-to-date video games, placed against the wall furthest from the soda fountain. Tubby could hear the electronic beeps and boops from outside the store.MOON MAN’S! was Nerd Nirvana, and the New Geek in Town immediately fell under its spell.

  “Son, would you like to look around, do some shopping? The Drive-In is just down the road a-piece. You can’t miss it. Or should I come back for you?”