Thomas Tryon - The Night of the Moonbow

The sun having crept into her eyes, she adjusted her celluloid eyeshade to cut the glare as she checked on Willa-Sue, who was sitting on the slatted bench under the grape arbor, among the ragged clumps of snapdragons and hollyhocks, cradling her doll, and watching Jezebel, who was on the hunt for mice among the arbor’s sagging posts.

Ma sighed. Pa himself had carpentered the arbor some twenty-five years before, and in those happier days he and she would sit side by side on that same bench, holding hands and planning the future, in anticipation of which Pa had also constructed a cradle. But it wasn’t until the thirteenth year of their marriage that their union had been blessed by the precious gift of a child, a baby girl born just before Christmas, and when two whole summers had passed and they had yet to hear her first words it had dawned on Ma that there must be something wrong. Medical science and Doc Thomason had confirmed her suspicions. Pa had been brokenhearted, taking it as a personal insult

– Starbuck males didn’t breed mental defectives – and a new chapter had opened in the life story of Mary and Garland Starbuck.

Pa took to sleeping in the spare room in the narrow bed and turned away from his daughter and his wife; even the camp that he had founded, and its “boys,” seemed to lose their place in his heart. As for Ma, being by nature optimistic and resourceful, she had taken the disappointment in her stride. If Willa-Sue was a bit slow, that was all right; at least she wasn’t sickly or peaked, the way some children were, and Ma could help her along with her lessons. The trouble was, the boys enjoyed making fun of her. One camper in particular, and that had been most upsetting because of who he was; though it had happened so many years ago now, Ma had never forgotten it. She had been sitting right here in this very chair in this same office; the boys were hiking past the window to the dining hall. A few had stopped to play with Willa-Sue; another – Reece Hartsig, then a camper in Harmony – had impatiently urged them to hurry up.

“Come on, you spuds, leave the dummy alone and let’s hop it!”

The dummy.

“Dum-dum dummy,” the boys shouted and ran away. Ma had grabbed the child from her playpen and carried her inside as if she’d been burned by fire. Pa, connected up to his radio set by earphones, had missed it all. She never told him what had happened. It would have done no good, no good at all.

It was then Ma finally realized that the man she lived with was no longer the man she had married. And nowadays -nowadays, out for a walk among the Moonbow byways, he had his eyes forever on the treetops and the little birds that hopped about among their branches, and on the clouds floating above the trees, and on the sky beyond the clouds, and saw almost nothing of the doings of “his boys.” And this was too bad, because there were some problems Ma couldn’t solve – in particular those concerning that same Reece Hartsig and the new boy in Jeremiah, Leo Joaquim. The morning after the Snipe Hunt Reece had come storming into the office, griping about the dumb trick Leo had played on Phil and Wally and demanding that Ma switch him with Talbot in Isaiah; the new boy, he said, would never make a Jeremian, and would cost the cabin the Trophy. Ma wouldn’t budge. To Jeremiah had Leo come, in Jeremiah would he stay. Frankly, she thought him real clever, resourceful too (not many new campers so much as suspected the truth behind the Snipe Hunt), but even if she had been so inclined she would not have acceded to Reece’s request, which would have meant separating Leo from Tiger Abernathy. She had reminded the counselor of the happy points his new camper was already earning for Jeremiah with his spider collection, and Reece had seemed mollified. Still Ma couldn’t be sure; if only Pa would have a word with him – but she knew the likelihood of that was small, the summer would be gone before he did.

She forced herself out of her morose reverie and returned to the task at hand. As she completed the last page of The Pine Cone and peeled it from the machine, Leo himself appeared in the barn doorway and headed for the pump. For some reason Willa-Sue had fixed her interest on the new boy from the first day – probably because he was one of the few campers who paid her a degree of attention – and now, slumped on the bench, she ogled him across the compound, idly fingering the ribbon Ma had put in her hair.

“Willa-Sue, pull your dress down,” Leo told her as he passed. “People can see up it.”

Ma shook her head at the child. “Willa-Sue, honey,” she called through the window, “you heard what Leo said. And leave off tugging your ribbon, it looks so pretty. The way you look today, you could be a movie star if you wanted. What would my lambie-pie like for lunch? How’s about a nice cold plate?”

Willa-Sue’s dour features set like plaster and she eyed her parent with a sulky expression.

“Horsecock,” she blurted.

“Now, hush you, Willa-Sue, I told you, nice girls don’t talk like that, that’s boy talk. If you don’t want a cold plate, how’s about a nice sammich?”

WillarSue jammed a thumb in her mouth and stared. “What kind of sammich would my honeybunch like?” Ma prompted.

“Penis butter and jelly.”

That old joke; Ma shook her head despairingly, and called through the window for Leo to keep an eye on Willa-Sue while she went into the kitchen to make lunch; obligingly he carried his copper mug full of water over to the arbor and sat down beside her.

“Wacko Wacko, chews tobacco…” Willa-Sue stared at Leo, her bug-eyes slightly crossed, a giddy expression on her sallow face.

“Wacko, Wacko, chews tobacco,” she said again.

Leo spoke sternly. “I asked you not to call me that. My name’s Leo: L-e-o. Leo. For ‘Leopold.’ It’s the name of a king. Leopold, King of the Belgians.”

“Lee-pole.”

“Pold. With a d. Lee-oh-podub. Can you say it?”

“Leo-pol-dub.”

“Well, it’s better than Wacko,” he muttered.

“Wacko, Wacko.” She rolled her eyes and burred her lips at him.

He blew out his cheeks in exasperation. “What do you want, Willa-Sue?” It turned out she wanted him to do the Three Stooges imitation the Bomber had been coaching him in, so he obliged, making his stupid Curly face, doing “Nyuck nyuck nyuck,” and slapping his cheeks, squeaking, and rolling his eyes idiotically, while the girl clapped her hands in excitement.

“Moe, Moe!” she cried. “Now do Moe!”

He did Moe for her, combing his hair forward and slapping his face some more. Willa-Sue became more excited and began to laugh shrilly. She held out her doll to him.

“Wacko hold dolly,” she commanded, and Leo took the doll and held it on his lap.

Just then the jitney pulled into the drive; Hank Ives debarked, and began to ring the bell for Morning Swim.

Almost before the first peal died away, craftsmen by the dozen erupted from the barn.

“Woo-woo, look at Wacko,” one of them called.

“Playing with your dolly, Wacko?” said another.

Burning with embarrassment, Leo grabbed Willa-Sue’s hand and marched her across the lawn toward the office, where he delivered her up to Ma and the penis-butter sandwich. Then, before he could be detained further, he headed down the meadow path at a fast clip. He didn’t want to be late for Morning Swim.

As he came trotting along the line-path the rest of the Jeremians (except for Tiger and Dump, who were getting in some practice with Hatton, the new Red Sox first baseman) exploded through every cabin aperture and raced off toward the waterfront. By the time Leo had jumped into his trunks and joined them and scores of others on the swimming dock, everyone was already lined up according to cabins, and Rex Kenniston sat up on the lifeguard stand. His silver whistle blew, calling the large, boisterous group to order; he reminded them of the waterfront rules (threatening to expel anyone who disobeyed). Again the whistle sounded and at once the place erupted in watery riot, but no sooner was the crib full than Rex sounded his whistle a third time, calling for buddy check, waiting until all campers’ hands were paired in the air (Leo had drawn Monkey as this week’s swim buddy). A fourth whistle – double this time – was the signal for activity to continue, and the boys were off, the Bomber cannonballing through the water with Eddie (his buddy), and Monkey following with Leo, who was not a strong swimmer. When they reached the raft, instead of boarding it, the Bomber sucked in a breath and sank from sight; Eddie and Monkey, then Leo, followed suit, and when they surfaced they were in the hollow chamber beneath the raft, surrounded by eight metal drums harnessed together. A golden web of reflected sunlight darted about them, transforming the space into a glorious underwater cave, and their voices in medley reverberated crazily under the wooden floor.