Iona Moon (29 page)

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?

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.

“You've got a visitor,” the woman said. She waddled to the bed to stare at Iona. “Jesus H. Christ. She's pissed herself. If she's ruined my mattress it'll be another twenty besides the rent.” The one at the door didn't answer. “You've got ten minutes,” the woman said, “and you'll keep this door open. I'm making an exception letting you in here at all. I don't like my ladies having male guests, don't allow it, in fact, so don't be getting any wrongheaded ideas.” The woman looked at Iona again and muttered, “You are one fine mess.”

Iona couldn't understand why the pounding hadn't stopped. It came faster now, not a single blow, not a hammer at all, dozens of tiny hooves, silver flashes behind her eyes. The man sat on the edge of the bed. He was heavier than Everett. Iona felt herself sliding toward him. She was chilled. She thought she remembered being hot, so hot she could barely stand it. That must have been a long time ago. The man picked the blanket off the floor and wrapped it around her. “It's me, baby. It's Eddie.” He touched her cheek. “I've got to get you out of here,” he said. “But you're going to have to help me. I can't carry you down the stairs—my leg, you know. You'll have to lean on me. Can you do that?” She nodded. “That's my girl,” he said. “I'm going to pack your suitcase, then we'll go.”