Beneath a Meth Moon (6 page)

thunderation

THE CHEER BEGINS
with one girl shouting,
Thunder!
and then the rest of us answer,
Thunderation!

Then together we say,

We're the best team in the Nation.

What do we fight for?

Domination!

We're a winning

Generation!

Our team is Dynamite, and we're gonna win tonight, so sound off! Sound off! . . .
For some reason, this is the cheer I remember staying with me.

It goes on. More words. More steps. Someone gets up on someone's shoulders, then flips down, turns, splits. Then we all split. And maybe this is why I remember it. The cheer ends this way—the way me and T-Boom did, the way me and Kaylee did, the way me and my daddy did—ends with the splitting. With all of us splitting.

And the bone-cold silence that follows the thunder.

confrontation

YOU SEEM DIFFERENT,
Kaylee said to me one night when I actually did make it back to her house. Maybe a month had passed since T-Boom had first shown me the moon. Kaylee and I were sitting on her bed, but I was twitching to be back with T-Boom, and my head was throbbing.

I was annoyed at Kaylee. What did she know about anything? She'd never kissed anyone, had never felt someone like T-Boom holding her, had never known the moon.

I'm just me,
I said
.
Just the same old Laurel.
But I wasn't the same. I was different now. Better. Bigger. Stronger. Everything in the world felt more clear to me. T-Boom was mine, and we had something—something good and real, bigger than the moon and the gumbo tattoo—me and T-Boom, we were together, connected in a way the rest of the world wouldn't ever be able to understand. Nobody got us, and that was all right because we had each other.
You know me like nobody's ever gonna know me,
T-Boom said to me one night.
You're inside me.

And the moon was our secret from the rest of the world. The way the moon lifted us up and took us places nobody else could ever go to . . . how could Kaylee ever understand that? She was just a girl. Just somebody from Galilee who didn't know what it meant to go from Pass Christian to Jackson to here. Galilee was her always. And now I had an always too—T-Boom.

It's like a part of you isn't even here anymore, Laurel.

You said you liked me this way. Liked me happy.

I do like you happy, but . . . something's off. It's either crazy happy or spaced-out or mad at me! And I don't even know what's coming when.

Kaylee's room was painted pale yellow. Striped curtains hung at the one large window that looked out over her family's fields. It was dark out, moonless. I pulled the curtain back and stared out at it, imagining T-Boom appearing out in that darkness, like a ghost knight on a horse, come to rescue me.

People think you're doing meth, Laurel,
I heard Kaylee say. I watched the ghost knight that was T-Boom come closer, lift his sword high into the air.

So much of it here. So many people doing it now. But I told them you weren't. Told them, given all that happened to you before you got here, they can't expect you to just be—

Kaylee stopped talking.

I let the curtain drop and looked at her. She was sitting across from me on the bed, her head down. She glanced up at me, then quickly back down again.

Are you, Laurel?

Am I what?

Are you doing meth?

Why would you even ask me that, Kaylee? Why would you even think I'm some meth head? Do I look like I'm doing meth?

I don't know. I don't know what it looks like . . . up close. I just want to know. So I could . . . I could help you, Laurel.

I got off her bed and started putting my coat on. We were supposed to be having a sleepover, but I was done with her. She didn't know anything. Not about me. Not about anyone.

You sit in your perfect room with your perfect curtains and try to judge people,
I said.
I don't need your help, Kaylee. I don't need you. And I don't care what people are saying.

Laurel
—Kaylee reached for my wrist, but I snatched it away—
I'm not judging you. Don't be like that—

Yes you are. You all are. I see the way the squad looks at me. I see them whispering—

Laurel, we're friends . . . I'm asking—I want to hear it from you. The truth . . . from you.

I had my coat on and my bag on my shoulder.

No,
I said, heading for the door.
I'm not a meth head. Happy, Kaylee? Does that answer your question?

C'mon, Laurel. Don't be like this—

And then I walked out her door.

kaylee after

I WASN'T THERE
when Daddy rang Kaylee's bell, but I could imagine it. Her mama answering it fast before it started the dog off barking and my daddy standing there, his head down, his eyes thick with tears.
I have some bad news, Donna,
then holding out his hand to show Donna the pipe, the moon.

I wasn't there, but I am now—inside this memory of it—Kaylee listening from behind her bedroom door, knowing it all now—where the moon came from, how I was going to go from sniffing to smoking, how I would move away from her—further and further until the afternoon she'd open her door to find me there, asking her for money.
I'll get it back to you, Kaylee. You know I'm good for it.
Her hand in the corner of her top right drawer where she kept the money she'd been saving—a month's worth of moon.
Take it, Laurel. Take it and leave me alone.
And me shaking, moon sick and ready to run.

The dream of Texas a long way behind us. A shadow of two girls on my front porch, the sun on us, the future filled up with promises it couldn't ever keep.

You my girl, Kaylee. You'll always be my girl.

I don't even know you anymore, Laurel.
And Kaylee closing the
door.

It's not mine, Mama,
Kaylee said, stepping from behind the door, looking her mother in the eye in a way I had long ago learned not to do.

I know,
Donna said, pulling Kaylee close to her. Because how could she have said to my father,
How could you not have known? How could you not have seen your daughter wasting away in front of you? Your daughter's darting eyes, her broken-out face, the tiny burns on her lips and fingers?
Donna hugging her daughter to her, not saying what she wanted to say—how she slowed down in front of our house, wanting to ring our bell, wanting to tell my father what she knew, what her daughter had cried into her lap after a game.
Laurel's doing meth, Mama. She's doing meth!

And my daddy standing there, my pipe and moon in his hands, then turning, turning away from them and throwing it hard into the darkness.

I wasn't there. I was already mostly gone.

after t-boom

MY DADDY KEPT ME HOME
from school for a week after he found my moon. And for a whole week, I didn't see T-Boom.
I drop it sometimes,
T-Boom had said to me way early on.
Just little bits of it around my room. If I wake up in the night needing some and there isn't a little bit close by, I just get down on the floor and look for the crumbs of it.
So I prayed I'd dropped the moon, knowing I hadn't, but still I crawled around my bedroom floor, picking up crumbs and hoping they were the moon. But mostly I slept, my body weak and sore, my skin itching everywhere at once.

Then it was Monday morning and I was standing in the kitchen, the house empty, my daddy gone back to work. A note on the table.
Food in the fridge. Please eat something. Love, Daddy & Jesse Jr.

The sun was bright as I stepped outside, dressed for school—but I walked the other way, to the House. To T-Boom.

People came around my mother's house sniffing,
he said.

I just need a little bit of the moon.

What'd you tell Kaylee's mother?

Nothing. I just want some moon, T-Boom.

I can't have you coming around here, 'cause if you freak out, then everybody freaks out.

Just a little bit of the moon.

And it's not free all the time, Laurel . . . Just the moon, please, T-Boom. I can pay for it. Quit talking. My skin hurts . . . !

You make me so mad, Laurel. This didn't have to get all crazy. You didn't have to open up your big mouth. What's with girls always blowing my cover up?

Just the moon, T-Boom, please. I'm sorry. I didn't say—

T-Boom had the moon in his hand, but he was pulling that hand back away from me. And then I was grabbing for it but too fast, because T-Boom's hand was moving and we were both falling, his hand against my mouth hard and my elbow maybe against his.

T-Boom cursed, put his hand to his mouth, blood and a tooth with it.

When I sat up, my head hurt. My front tooth felt like it was freezing. I moved my tongue over it. Part of it was gone.

You chipped my tooth . . . And mine is out of my head, so we're even. The end,
he said, way too calm and quiet. Then his voice was loud again, loud and hard.
You're gonna destroy me
.

We sat staring at each other. I couldn't stop running my tongue over my tooth, couldn't stop wanting the moon to be inside me, making this all go away.

You're gone, Laurel,
T-Boom said. His voice getting soft again, like there were tears somewhere behind it.
You weren't supposed to get like this. I trusted you. I trusted you!

He threw the tiny package of moon at me.

Take it.

After another minute, he threw me his pipe and his lighter. The ground was cold underneath me, but the cold felt good, felt right. Then the moon was inside me, and I felt like I was on a carpet, drifting up over everything. Far away . . .
Let's do something, T-Boom. Let's go somewhere . . . You can't even hear me anymore.

T-Boom got up and started walking away. I watched him go, slow motion and beautiful.

The moon moving so fast through me that I didn't see this beginning of the end of us. Didn't see the months coming at me—
You need to pay for it like everyone else does.
Didn't see his arm slipping forever from around my shoulder.

Let's go be crazy, T-Boom.

Didn't see his beautiful back already disappearing. His pretty, sad eyes no longer seeing me.
Gumbo
dark across a shoulder I wouldn't ever put my head against again.

Louisiana
like a song . . . Moon smoke so thick around me, like a blanket, like an arm . . . And me there on the ground in the bright morning, staring out through it—not knowing anything else anymore but this new thing, this wanting nothing, needing nothing, feeling nothing . . . but moon.

elsewhere

THE TELEVISION WAS ON,
flashing news of the hurricane, when we walked into my Aunt G.'s house that evening. Cars had crawled a slow straight line up out of the Pass, and by the time we'd got to 49, the rain was already pounding down on us. Daddy was silent most of the way to Jackson, his jaw a hard, sad line, his fingers drumming the wheel. The one time Jesse Jr. cried, I pulled out one of the many bottles of formula Mama had made up for him. He watched me as he sucked on it—looking at me like I knew some answers he didn't. I chewed on pretzels and ate cheese sticks, trying hard not to think about Mama and M'lady back there in that rain.

As we pulled into Aunt G.'s driveway, she ran out, throwing her arms around my daddy, then me, then taking Jesse Jr. from my arms and rushing us all inside.

I'm sure y'all hungry.
She was tall like my mama, had Mama's same blue-gray eyes.

I must have been staring at her, because she hugged me again, held me away from her, then pulled me to her one more time before letting go. Jesse Jr. made a sound in her other arm. She cradled him, kissed his forehead, her other hand still on my shoulder.

Water already coming hard on the Pass,
she said.
They saying it's gonna be bad.

My cousins came running down the stairs one right behind the other. They were all younger than me—three boys—Russ, Colvin and Daniel Jr.—and when they saw me standing there, they nearly knocked me over with their screaming and grabbing. Russell was the oldest—seven and already tall like his mama, but redheaded. Colvin was four, and Daniel Jr. was three, but they looked so much alike, most people thought they were twins. I remember when Daniel was born—Mama yelling to Daddy,
Gessie went and had herself another boy!
I let them jump all over me as I listened to Aunt G.

I've been praying on it,
Aunt G. said, spooning coleslaw onto two plates, then piling them high with rice and sausage.
Mama and Marie are too stubborn. They should have both gotten out of there. Should be elsewhere.

Daddy sat down at the table, holding the baby in one arm as he ate a piece of bread from the basket Aunt G. had put on the table. Jesse Jr. was awake, lifting his head up and trying to look around at everything. He smiled in my direction. Mama had said little babies couldn't see too far, but I swear he could smell me coming. He always knew just where I was.

Aunt G. put the two plates on the table, and I shook the boys off of me, washed my hands at the kitchen sink and sat down. Russell snatched up the chair on one side of me, and Colvin and Daniel fought over the other one. We bowed our heads, and my daddy said a prayer asking the Lord to keep everyone safe. When he was done praying, we opened our eyes. Jesse Jr. had fallen asleep again, but the boys sat there, watching me eat like they hadn't seen me in a million years.

Turn your big eyes away from me already,
I said to them.
Y'all act like you never saw me before.

The boys laughed but kept on staring, their eyes wide open like they were trying to drink every little bit of me in.

Strange to be somebody's favorite that way, for the first time. Long before Jesse Jr. grew up and loved me that hard.

Aunt G. brought a small bassinet over to the table, and Daddy closed his eyes and pressed his lips against the baby's head for a moment before settling Jesse Jr. into it.

The television was turned up in the living room, and we all listened while we ate. The newspeople were predicting heavy flooding, and the boys looked hard at me.

Lord have mercy,
Aunt G. whispered.
Get them elsewhere, dear God. Get them on out of there.

Mama and M'lady gonna be okay, Daddy?

They'll be all right,
Daddy said real soft
.
They going up to the Walmart if the water gets too high. They got a plan.
He let out a heavy breath.
They'll be all right,
he said again.
They'll get somewhere else if they need to.

But my daddy's hand trembled when he lifted his fork to his mouth. And Jesse Jr. woke up suddenly. And cried and cried and cried.