Then there was a crash behind us, and we looked back to see Hermit Weaper fallen against the base of a tree, pulling himself up to a sitting position. He had stopped pursuing, but we continued to break our way through the trees as though he were right behind us.
“Don’t come back!” he cried, straining his voice to reach us as we got farther from him. “Worm Moon tonight. They’ll get you sure! You don’t stay inside, they’ll hunt you down. They’ll take your eyes, you hear me? An hour from now, this whole town goes warg. They’ll eat your lungs right outta your chest! They’ll pop your lungs like balloons and eat ’em right down! You hear me? Don’t come back!”
When we reached the road, we got on our bikes and pedaled hard all the way back to my house. It wasn’t until we were safely inside that we realized the sun had already set and the streets were quiet. We had lost track of time at the lakeside.
My father said it was too late for Polly to go home. He said she would stay the night, and he called her parents to tell them so.
That night Polly and I huddled under the covers of my bed and speculated about the world of those who were older than we.
We both knew that Hermit Weaper was just trying to scare us back home. But Polly couldn’t let go of his words.
She said, “I don’t want my lungs eaten.” Then she added, “I don’t want to eat them, either. I mean, when we’re older.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. I reveled in her nervousness, because it made me feel more keen than my friend. “I’m sure we’ll acquire a taste for it.”
“Ew,” she said, and we giggled.
“Would you rather—” Polly started, then rephrased her theoretical question. “Let’s say it’s a dark alley. Would you rather meet up with Hermit Weaper or Rosebush Lincoln’s brother on a full moon?”
Rosebush Lincoln’s brother was sixteen.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess the Hermit.”
“I’d rather Rosebush Lincoln’s brother.”
“Don’t say that.”
“It’s true. They don’t really hurt people, you know. It’s not true what the Hermit said. They don’t eat your—they don’t hurt anybody. Except maybe themselves. And each other.”
I liked it better when we talked of such things in the fairy-tale terms of lung-eating. It was easier to cope with. If you talked about hurt in the abstract, it was a deeper, more echoey well of a thing.
“They could hurt you,” I insisted.
“Not on purpose. They’re just teenagers. We’ll be like that too one day.”
I didn’t tell Polly that I had already promised my father I wouldn’t be like that. She would have taken it as disloyalty. Much later we tried to sleep, but there were the voices outside. I couldn’t forget what Hermit Weaper had said. In my mind there was a picture of Rosebush Lincoln’s brother, handsome Billy Lincoln, and there was a hollow cavity in my chest, and where my lungs should have been there was nothing at all, and one of my lungs was actually hanging between Billy Lincoln’s teeth, half consumed, deflated and bloody, like a gigantic tongue—and I couldn’t breathe, because all my breath was caught in Billy Lincoln’s grinning mouth.
*
My husband drives us home from the Petersons’ party. This is just last night.
It’s 12:15, and we are late in relieving the sitter. Jack is itchy with liquor, and he says to me, “You were—you were the sexiest wife at that party.”
“Jack.”
“No, I’m serious. I’m not kidding around. No one can hold a candle to you.”
“I thought the lamb was overcooked. Did you think so? Everyone complimented it, though. Janet prides herself on her lamb.”
Then Jack pulls the car over to the side of the road and turns off the ignition.
“Do you want to fool around?” he asks.
“Jack, the babysitter.”
“To hell with the babysitter.” It’s his grand, passionate gesture. He must have me, here in the car, and the rest of the world can burn. “I’ll—I’ll give her an extra twenty.”
The silliness of family men. I chuckle.
He takes offense. “Forget it,” he says and goes to start the car. I’ve hurt him by not being sufficiently quailed by the blustery storm of his sex. It’s funny how many ways there are to hurt people. As many ways to hurt as there are species of flower. Whole bouquets of hurt. You do it without even realizing.
“Wait, Jack. I’m sorry.”
“Why did you laugh?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I was nervous. What if someone sees us?”
“Let them,” he says.
So I reach up under my skirt, hook my underpants with my thumbs, and pull them down. He unzips his pants, and I straddle him. While he quakes and gurgles beneath me, I gaze out the windows of the car. The road where we’ve stopped is indistinguishable from any of the others in the area—a quiet residential neighborhood with sidewalks and shade trees. In truth there is no danger of being caught. The residents of this area are good and decent people. Their lives, after midnight, consist of sleep or the late, late show on television, played at a low volume so as not to wake the children. The streets are empty. The mild breeze dapples the sidewalk with the shadows of leaves in lamplight. But there is no one out there in the dark. No one.
Jack moves under me. I hold his face to my bosom, I kiss the top of his head. In a few moments, he is finished.
He wants to kiss me passionately to show that his love for me doesn’t end when his sexual urgency does. He’s a nice kisser after all these years.
He rolls down the windows for the rest of the drive home.
On the way, he points to the sky.
“Look,” he says. “A full moon.”
“I know,” I say without raising my eyes. The car drives along in the quiet, fragile night.
“What do you call that one? Octopus Moon? Spanky Moon?”
“Blowfly Moon.”
“Blowfly. That’s my favorite one!”
I’ve told him very little about my childhood or the town where I grew up. What little I have told him—for example, that we had names for the different full moons—he finds quaint and charming. He pictures me as a prairie girl, maybe. Or a Mennonite.