Beneath a Meth Moon (8 page)

daneau's girl

RAIN CAME HARD
that first time I went into rehab, and by late afternoon, small rivers were moving along the sides of the building, puddling all around me. I sat up against the hardware store, shivering in my coat, my hat pulled down, my sign
HOMELESS AND HUNGRY
perched and sogging against my knees. The street was empty. The sky near black with clouds. I listened to the voices inside my head, the story of a girl skipping home through a big field—sunflowers all around her. I'd never seen a sunflower in real life. The story faded in and out of my brain. I shivered hard, trying to hold on to it—hold on to the sun coming down in that girl's field, the warmth all around her. Moses's eyes came to mind, the warm brown of them, and I tried to hold that thought too, him sitting next to me, us just talking.
I bet there's still some spring in you . . .
But soon, the warm brown and the soft words faded out of my brain and the rain was back, gray and cold.

A police officer stopped in front of me, dark shades hiding his eyes, a dollar bill hanging from his hand. Felt like I had to look up forever to finally see the top of his head, and when I did, I noticed how he'd tipped his hat forward. Clear plastic was covering the hat, and I thought that was strange—all the rain falling and the only thing protected from it was his hat, his long black coat left to soak up all that water.

Ladies' shelter no more than five blocks from where you're sitting,
he said, holding the dollar out to me a minute longer. I didn't reach for it. I wasn't stupid enough to take money from a cop that way.

I got a home.
I stared straight up at him, trying to see past those dark shades, that plastic-covered hat.

He nodded.
Yeah. And I got a million dollars.
You need to get somewhere, because this rain's not stopping anytime soon. Calling for more coming—maybe even some flooding—and you're already shivering.

I pulled my arms tighter around me and closed my eyes hard, my breath coming fast. The flood coming again, and me with no place to go. The flood coming, and where was Daddy and Jesse Jr.? Where was everybody? The water was rising up, and this time it was gonna get all of us.

Help me,
I whispered, pressing myself into the building behind me.
Help me . . .
The cop hunched down closer to me and lifted his shades, water dripping from them, from his plastic hat, from everywhere. I couldn't move. Where could I run to if the water was already here?

Please . . .
His eyes got soft when he looked close at me.

Jesus!
he said.
You're a kid!
He looked at me a moment longer.
Didn't you used to cheer for the Tigers?
he asked real slow.
Over in Galilee?

I kept looking away from him.

My God! You're Charles Jesse Daneau's girl, aren't you?

I scratched at my face. It was hot suddenly. Itchy.

He pulled out his phone and started dialing.

You remember my son, Bernie? Point guard. You must know him. Jesus!

I got up slow, ready to run, but Bernie's daddy put his hand on my shoulder, hard. Holding me there. Each breath I took was filled with water. I was already drowning. Already sinking.

I remember your hair,
he said, holding the phone to his ear with his other hand.
Nobody could miss your hair.
He looked at me hard for a long time.
Your daddy and brother been sick to death over you. Got the whole church praying you come off this stuff!
He turned away from me, speaking fast and quiet into his phone. I heard him say
Daneau's girl.
I wanted to try to run again, but hearing him say my daddy's name like that took every bit of energy out of me. I felt my stomach turning over. There was nothing in it, but something bitter was moving up to my throat. Bernie's dad let go of my shoulder for a moment to push his shades up, then quick grabbed me again. He had Bernie's same hard jaw.
My God
, he said.
How did this happen to you?

the missing

BERNIE'S FATHER
called a police car in from Galilee and put me in the backseat when the two cops showed up. The car was warm and smelled like coffee. But the rain was slamming against the windows, and I had to close my eyes tight to keep it away from me. One of the cops said,
You hungry?
and I shook my head no. I heard the other cop say,
Meth is food, clothing and shelter to these kids, you know that.

I pressed my hands hard against the seat, trying to keep my whole body from twitching. My head hurt with all the things running through it. I couldn't remember the last time I'd eaten a meal. The Heath bar I'd had at lunchtime was still turning around in my stomach, and I prayed that it wouldn't decide to make its way back up inside the car. And now, with the storm coming . . . what did M'lady and Mama eat before they died?

Bernie's dad went around to the front and said something to the driver. I opened my eyes to see both cops nodding at him. Bernie's dad waved to me as we pulled away, but I didn't wave back, just closed my eyes again, waiting for the water to come.

Your daddy meeting you at New Sunrise,
Driver Cop said.
This your first time there?

What's that?
I said.
What's New Sunrise?

Yup—her first time,
I heard the other cop say.

Treatment. Help you kick this thing.

I don't have anything to kick.

Won't be her last time,
Other Cop said, very matter-of-fact. Like he had all the answers to everything.

Over near Galilee,
Driver Cop said.
They got a lot of these places right near each other. There's a lot of you, in case you haven't been noticing.

We drove awhile with no one saying anything. I'd seen other kids around the House and in Donnersville, but none of us talked to each other much. Seemed everyone loved the moon in their own solitary way and didn't want to share.

I lay back against the seat again and closed my eyes. My jaw hurt, and I realized I'd been clenching my teeth. I hadn't seen my daddy in more than a month. Felt like a long time ago he'd stopped trying to find me, stopped dragging me home, stopped praying over my bedside, stopped believing . . .
What more's there to believe in?
he'd said the last time he caught me sneaking out to meet up with T-Boom.
Even when you're here, you're gone.
Then he closed the door. Maybe he watched through the window as I ran. I don't know. I missed him and Jesse Jr. like crazy when I let the missing take me. Most times I erased the thoughts coming before they could hit me too hard.

The day my daddy let me walk out of that house for the last time was the first time I heard him curse. The house filled with the smell of the moon I'd been smoking, and me so high I could hardly see him. Jesse Jr. in his pajamas, even though it was daytime.
I'm hungry, Daddy,
he kept saying over and over.
I'm so hungry.
And me so high I didn't need food, so I figured he didn't either. The food money gone . . .
Who had I become?

new sunrise

DADDY AND JESSE JR.
were standing on the stairs when the cop car pulled up in front of a small white building with
NEW SUNRISE
painted across the door in thick black letters. I stared past him—just looked at the sign, trying not to see how old his face had gotten. How broken up he was. His beard was filled with gray and looked shaggy. When he first started growing it, he'd brush it every day, clip it—to keep it looking good, he'd said. He looked pale, and there were dark circles under his eyes. He was wearing a clear plastic poncho. Underneath it, he only had on a shirt and wrinkled pants. The pants were too long, dragging wet on the ground. I closed my eyes. The last time I'd seen him, he was cursing me, and now he was standing there, his clothes hanging big on his body, Jesse Jr. beside him, his coat soaking wet and too small. They watched me climb out of the cop car and then Jesse ran toward me. It was then the tears finally found a way to get out of me. Jesse's pale arms coming way past his sleeves, reaching up for me.
Lift me up, Laurel. Carry me! I want you to carry me!
I lifted him, and he threw his arms around me, hard and tight, tucking his nose into my neck like he used to do when he was small and scared. He'd grown taller, his legs hanging down near my knees. His hair had gotten long and dark, sticking to his neck in dirty clumps.

I felt my daddy's hand on my shoulder and pressed my face into his coat, and the three of us stood there for a long time, the cops just watching.

I lied, Daddy,
I whispered.
I do need the moon. Please, please help get it out of me . . .
My daddy's tears against my face warm as rain.

lord, do remember me

NEW SUNRISE IS IN SUMMITVILLE
off of Route 38, just down the highway from a school for the blind and across the street from a Walmart. The first day there, I stared out the small window in my room, imagining the water washing over Walmart and floating it down the highway. Over and over again, the water came in and washed the big white building with its huge blue letters away. The
W
and
A
and
L
floating past me.

They made me say good-bye to Daddy at the door. Behind him, Jesse Jr. stared at me, his small face pressed against my daddy's leg, his eyes wide and afraid.

You gonna come home again, Laurel?
Jesse Jr. asked me.
You gonna live with us again
? I promised him I would. Then Jesse Jr. and Daddy were driving away, back home, to wait for me to come home from New Sunrise, moon-free and Laurel again.

A woman named Esther showed me to my room up a long flight of stairs and at the end of a long hall of rooms.

There aren't any locks,
Esther said.
We trust in you and the Lord to keep you here, but we can't lock you in. Your journey is your own. But everyone at New Sunrise loves you already, Laurel. We're here to guide you home.

I'll give you some time to get settled,
Esther said as she went through my pockets, made me take off my shoes and pulled the soles back to look beneath them. The cops had taken my pipe and moon away. There wasn't anything left for her to find. In my knapsack I just had my filled-up writing books and three pens, a bunch of scrap paper with lots of words written all over each piece, and a slice of bread and cheese I'd gotten that morning at the Salvation Army breakfast cart.

Would you like to pray now? Thank the Lord for your journey?
She smiled at me. She was tall and skinny. Maybe she was twenty-five, but her face was hard and old-looking, and I knew from looking at her that she'd once known the moon.

I thanked Him already,
I lied.

Then I'll see you in an hour at meeting,
Esther said.
Stay blessed.

I lay down on the bed and tried to pray—
We know not the day nor the hour. Lord, do remember me. Our Father who art in Heaven, give us . . .
but the words tumbling out of me didn't make sense, and when the tears started coming, I couldn't stop them. I was shivering and burning up all at once. My skin was prickling all over like some invisible thing was taking bites out of me. I scratched hard at any part I could reach.

I don't know how long I stayed that way, scratching and crying, but when I got up off the bed, my throat was burning and the sky was black. The storm was right there—waiting to pour down over me. Maybe I was ready—ready to let it. Felt like it'd been years of me running from the storm and now it'd found me, now it'd come to take me. I was tired. I couldn't run anymore.

I walked slow to meeting, sat down in a circle surrounded by other people who knew the moon. We prayed. We held hands. So many people cried when they told their stories. A girl just a little bit older than me who had known the moon since she was nine. We looked at each other. Looked away from each other. Maybe she could have been a friend to me, but I didn't need any friends anymore. I just wanted sleep—sleep until the storm washed me away.

Days passed, and the Walmart sign was always just outside my window. When it rained, everything looked like it was melting. Maybe I was melting. Maybe that was how I'd disappear. When the thoughts came hard—Jesse Jr. crying in my arms, the too-long, wet cuffs on my daddy's pants, Mama and M'lady—I wrote. Wrote until my hand hurt, wrote until the itching didn't bother me, until the memories didn't hurt coming on . . . wrote about the happy endings and people laughing, about sun on water and people's hair—I wrote about Kaylee and the squad, about gumbo and shrimp boils, about M'lady taking out my hem and telling me about my future . . .
Laurel . . . ?

I'm here. I'm still here.

The moon staying inside me, pulling . . . pulling on me hard. Slowly, the sky cleared. Slowly, the storm passed over me.

Laurel . . . Your daddy and brother are here . . .
The day before I left New Sunrise, Daddy and Jesse Jr. came to see me. They made us sit in a meeting room with a counselor. We were supposed to sit in chairs in a small circle and talk about family problems that made me chase the moon. But Jesse Jr. only wanted to sit in my lap, his arms tight around my neck.
You have to sit in your own seat,
the counselor kept saying. She wasn't the woman from my first day. She was older, a psychologist or something. Dr. Somebody.

You're not the boss of me,
Jesse Jr. said.
Laurel is the boss of me.

I held tight to Jesse Jr., not wanting to let him go. My daddy sat across from us, watching me. He'd shaved off his beard, but he still looked older, tired. When the counselor finally gave up on Jesse Jr. leaving my lap, she asked my daddy how he was doing.

I
just
want Laurel to live,
he whispered.
I just want her to make it.
He looked at me.
I'd give my whole life for that, baby girl. My whole life.

I didn't know how to say to him that I didn't want his life. I didn't want to lose anybody else—couldn't live if another somebody died on me. I held tight to Jesse Jr. Put my face deep in his warm neck, sniffed the smells of him—sweat and something a little bit sour and sweet at the same time.

I'm not mad at you, Laurel,
my daddy said.
Been too worried sick about you to be anything but worried sick. But when I'm not worrying and fretting about you, I'm remembering my baby girl, the wind blowing in your hair, how you used to make me lift you up so you could grab some sky and put it in your pocket . . .
His voice dropped off, and even though I couldn't look at him, I knew he was crying, crying like he'd cried when we came up on where our house used to be in the Pass, crying like he did when we found out Mama and M'lady didn't make it, crying hard like he'd cried at the funerals. I pressed my face hard into Jesse Jr.'s neck, thinking about how easy the moon made all that sadness lift up and fly away.

You gonna die, Laurel?
Jesse Jr. had asked before him and my daddy left me at New Sunrise that day
.
'
Cuz then who would be my sister anymore?

After they left, I went back into my room, lay on my bed and let the darkness take over. I used to ask M'lady what happened when you died, where'd your thinking go.
I don't really know where your thinking goes,
she'd answer
.
Just your soul.
The moon took my thinking away, lifted it right up out of me and filled that space where it was with good things—light and sweetness. Happiness. When I was high, I was happy.

My hands were shaking as I put my notebooks and my pens and the pieces of paper into my bag. There was quiet all around me. Maybe it was midnight. The darkness was calling hard to me. Cool air all around me. And somewhere, I could hear a train whistle blowing low. Over and over again. Like it was telling me which way to run. So I did run, hard as I could, away from that place.

By the time I stopped running to catch my breath, I was sweating. A few stars were out. Some clouds moved, revealing the moon. I ran half the night—toward it.

And T-Boom was there, like he knew I was coming.