Макс Коллинз - Shoot the Moon (and more)

Wheaty and the Founder’s Day Queen.

“Wheat!” I whispered. “It’s me! Kitch!”

“Kitch!” Wheat said, sitting up, bumping his head on the roof (or rather, floor) of the bandshell.

“Wheat, get out of there. It’s important.”

“Well, gee, so is this, Kitch.”

The toes belonging to the Founder’s Day Queen had long since curled, and I now heard some terrified whispering from the Queen who had been quite understandably scared out of her socks (figuratively speaking) by the interruption.

First Wheat, then the Queen, peeked out. Neither Wheat or the Queen was undressed, just disheveled, unbuttoned, and, well, let’s just say there was nothing wrong with Sue Ann’s hearing. The Queen just sat there in her fetchingly disarrayed white dress (which was looking less and less virginal all the time) and tried to straighten her rhinestone tiara and blushed. Sue Ann apologized for our rude interruption, and said not to be embarrassed, because “Fred and I have been making out all afternoon ourselves.”

Everybody blushed then (except Sue Ann, of course) and Wheat asked me what was going on.

I said, “We’re going to help our friends get out of town.”

Surprisingly, Wheat understood at once. “Good,” he said. “How?”

“I’ll explain later. For right now, just do what I tell you, and trust me.”

“Sure, Kitch. I suppose I better be getting my shoes back on, huh?”

“Not exactly,” I said, and I took off my clothes and handed them to Sue Ann.

“My mom’ll kill me,” Wheat said.

We were both crouched in the bushes at the edge of the park, a few feet away from the main street and the crowd of people who were still enthusiastically celebrating Founder’s Day. Right now there was a lull while the rock band left the stage (that is, the platform truck) and the country western band took over; the two bands had been alternating since late this afternoon. The country western band was getting its guitars slung around its necks and what not, and the pudgy, bald Mayor of Wynning was standing at the microphone announcing the winners of various events of the day, including the watermelon-eating contest, in which Sue Ann’s police chief Uncle Phil had come in second. I could see two of the reporters were still with us, the one from the Port City Journal and the one from the Des Moines Register , too. Both of them had their flash cameras out and were taking pictures of things, the Mayor at the moment; both of them seemed thoroughly sloshed on the nickel beer the local bar was still dispensing. There were still a lot of people here, in fact I’d guess just about everybody had stayed the duration: when the rock band was playing, the adults would stand along the sidelines (and sit, as many of them had brought lounge chairs along) and watch the kids dance; and when the country western band was playing, the kids would disappear off into the park and find a tree (or a bandshell) to neck under. A lot of the people were munching on tacos or snow cones or cotton candy, or drinking pop or the nickel beer. Everybody seemed to be enjoying themselves. What I’m saying is, Founder’s Day gave no signs of letting up. It could go on this way till midnight. Tomorrow.

Wheat and I crouched in the bushes and took all this in. Did I mention we were naked?

We were naked.

Standing over in the crowd, leaning against the stolen Mustang, slurping good-naturedly at nickel beer, doing their best to look inconspicuous and not doing a bad job of it, were Elam and Hopp. Elam was watching the bushes, as I’d told him to. I stuck my head out a ways. A little ways. Elam nodded that he’d seen me and I stuck my head back in.

“My mom’ll kill me, Kitch,” Wheat said again.

“She didn’t kill you last time.”

“Almost.”

“We got no choice, Wheat. You think I like this idea?”

“You think I want to go back to jail, Kitch?”

“You didn’t seem to mind the first time.”

“At least explain why we’re doing this.”

The two Highway Patrolmen were leaning against their car, looking bored. One of them was eating a grape snow cone. The other was slouched, arms folded, half-asleep.

“No time to explain, Wheat,” I said. “Let’s go.”

And two naked birds, with nothing in hand, emerged from the bush.

Running.

I took the lead.

This time I wasn’t covering myself. It wasn’t that I’d gotten over my initial shyness: there were people to push through. We literally had to shove our way through the crowd to be able to run in front of the platform truck where the Mayor was announcing the winners of the bake-off.

It wasn’t as bad as coming through those doors and unexpectedly bumping into a wedding party assembled for a picture taking. No, this time Wheat and I were ready for the throng, and neither one of us fell down. We did get our pictures taken again, though, as both drunken reporters managed to snap their flash cameras and catch us as we streaked by.

I caught a glimpse of a Highway Patrolman dropping a snow cone to the pavement as we passed, cutting within three feet of the patrol car. I heard squeals of laughter and horror and even some scattered applause as we cut around the platform truck and skirted the saw-horse blocking off the main street from where it turned into the highway out of town, which is where we headed.

I heard Wheat coming up from behind me, and then he was edging up on me, and we were like a couple of relay runners who forgot to bring along a baton to pass. There was no sound, except for our feet on the blacktop road, and our breathing. It wasn’t dark out at all, the moon was bathing us and the road in a milky glow. We were running like graceful animals, side by side, in perfect precision. We were running fast, hard, but easily, too, like conditioned athletes.

We were beautiful.

It was so different this time. I felt no sense of panic, or even of danger. I felt free. Naked and running and free, my feet padding along the road, cornfields gliding by on either side of me, the moon coasting along above.

I looked over at Wheat, not breaking stride.

He was grinning.

I grinned back at him, and we stepped up the pace a little. By that time we’d gone a good half mile.

By that time the siren had started up, and the Highway Patrol car was in pursuit.

A quarter mile later they caught us.

The Highway Patrolman who hours earlier had reminded me of Shaker Saltz grabbed me by the arm. The other patrolman grabbed Wheat’s arm, and both of them solemnly shoved us in back and drove us wordlessly back into Wynning.

We were greeted with cheers and applause. There were a few sour faces in the crowd, but not many. The Mayor looked confused, but I saw Uncle Phil, who was grinning ear to ear, and then saw him lean over and begin whispering in the Mayor’s ear, and the Mayor began to nod. Most of the townspeople were too high on nickel beer and tacos and snow cones and cotton candy and pop to be mad at us. Sue Ann came over to where the patrol car had pulled up and blew me a kiss through the window. She had my clothes under her arm.

It pleased me to come back to such a warm reception. But it pleased me even more to come back and see that empty space along the curb in front of the bank.

Nobody pressed any charges. Sue Ann’s uncle convinced the Mayor that Wheat and me streaking was a positive thing for Wynning, that it would mean just that much more publicity for the Centennial Celebration.

Which was exactly right. The Des Moines Register guy’s picture came out over-exposed, but the Port City Journal photographer got a good clear shot of us, which he sold to People magazine, who did an article on us, which stated that we had streaked at Wynning to protest our going to jail for the other time we streaked. I told them that, and it was a lie. I admit it.