Moon Regardless

by Nick Manzolillo

  Hap, whisking himself away amongst the crowd, feels like jumping into the black and grimy river, but washing himself in Providence water would be the opposite of a cleansing. He sees Tiff’s old roommate, Erin, and tries to avoid her, but the pushing of the crowds causes them to cross paths. She’s dressed up with a group of unfamiliar girls who reek of the present college fashion of brown boots, matching jeans, and white blouses. Hap smells their perfume from ten feet away; it’s strong enough to overcome the smoky musk that clouds the water fire celebrations.

  Pushing through the crowds, Hap tries to evade Erin, who notices him and begins calling out his name, repeating herself with, “How are you doing? Are you okay?” In his drunken attempt to escape, the next thing Hap’s slowing mind comprehends is a cop screaming at him as he picks his way through a streaming line of cars stuck in traffic, having ignored the cop’s hand signals to not cross. Hap drops his Twisted Tea onto the sidewalk and breaks into an all-out sprint. By the time he realizes no knights of authority are chasing him, he’s climbing up a steep street next to a fire station. He is only dimly aware of where he is.

  Prospect Park, where he was supposed to propose to Tiff. Hap’s heartbeat begins to rest as he notes the emptiness of the park. The statue of Providence’s founder, Roger Williams, overlooks the city with an extended hand, palm down as if he’s urging the tiny metropolis to be calm. Directly above Roger Williams’s stone head is the edge of the waxing gibbous moon that shines just under a week away from being full. The statue lines up with the moon. Could this mean something? The way the city aligns with the stars, Roger Williams, and the moon?

  Hap finds a soft bench beside a massive, strange rock in the middle of the grass, which looks like it once had a sign on it. In a plaque on the bench are the words: All that sleep shall awaken. All that are lost will rise. The city is speaking to Hap, over and over, yet its riddles are only decipherable to the insane. Maybe Hap will get there one day. The stars lull him to sleep.

  In the morning, Hap’s wounds from the accident bring him back to life, aided both by the roughness of the bench and the leering cop standing over him. The unfamiliar black officer threatens to give him a ticket as he asks for Hap’s ID. “Keep it in the dorms next time,” the cop tells him. Fighting back vomit, Hap doesn’t have the heart to correct him.

  Chapter 8: The Last Gulp (of Fresh Air)

  Within Paul’s dreams, he entered his office to find a collection of clowns. One of them was perched on his desk. They were not the fun kind of clown; somewhere within Paul’s inner consciousness, he knew the moment he saw them that they, somehow, were real clowns and not people in makeup. Hunched over like monkeys, at least a dozen of them filled the increasingly confined room. They wore white onesies with black buttons, sporting an assortment of curly orange hair, orange beards, black-rimmed eyes, and pale faces that complemented their crimson lips. They smiled and showed off the perfect holes in their teeth. A circle was taken out of every crooked, yellow tooth, large enough that Paul wondered how the lower half didn’t just break away. “Mooshuck,” the clowns croaked, froglike. No, they were saying something real. Moon shark? No, not quite. “Moon Shack,” the clowns croaked again. The one on his desk was cocking its head, studying him, trying to gauge if he was a threat.

  “Well, what do we have here?” an old man muttered from behind Paul just as his office door slammed shut and the walls melted black. The clowns were banished, replaced with an old man who glowed with a faint, silver aura that complemented his mostly white hair and black beard. In one hand, he held a telescope. The other, he extended Paul’s way. A handshake, he couldn’t do a handshake. Paul was paralyzed as the old man, old Charles McKinley himself turned and pointed the telescope at the blackness in front of them. Stars began to sprinkle in, one by one, as if tumbling through a clogged saltshaker. Other planets appeared as colorful orbs as the galaxy made itself known.

  The Milky Way spun into a spiral, and the sun thinned into a pentagramno, a seven-pointed star—as the planets in the solar system spun faster and faster, joined by other galaxies and hidden worlds. A vortex began to form. The flashing crescendo of blurring lights from outer space became the connected tendrils of a living thing. The word chaos popped into Paul’s mind.

  “The cosmos is going to swallow us up unless we make ourselves superior.” McKinley jabbed the telescope through the swirling mess that was beginning to radiate strange warmth over Paul. Screams began to fill his ears, and an image of the earth hovered over him, zooming in to reveal the flesh of billions boiling and popping. He saw incomprehensible flying things with dripping tentacles and too many teeth ripping men and women apart, nuclear warheads combusting before they could leave the launching pad, something rising free from the oceans and towering through the atmosphere as it raised its humanoid arms and uncurled a black pair of leathery wings. The telescope slashed through the image of the earth as McKinley grunted, screamed in fury, and stabbed his silver scope once more until the images faded.

  McKinley, glowing, alone, stood toe to toe with Paul. “We cannot comprehend them,” he said. He raised the telescope in the air like a freshly thrust spear, ready to strike again. “What they will do to our minds is worse. We need your help to stop them. We need you to give us courage, Paul, for we must plunge into wickedness with only your devotion as a harness.” McKinley clapped a hand on Paul’s shoulder and whispered into his ear, “We have allies, though they are few. Always trust your closest clown.” He breached off into high-pitched laughter that dug into Paul’s ears, sending him screaming awake in a bed filled with women and men still basking in the afterglow of untold pleasures.

  Paul is not doing okay as he walks all the way from the waterfront district to Federal Hill. The heat soaks through his sweats and T-shirt. He feels as though his skin is stretching, becoming something else. The Candle Lighters, they are not wrong, though they do awful, awful things.

  Where has his friend Nicky gone? Are the bums the first to be sucked away?

  He has friends on the Hill. More accurately, his father’s friends. The genuine Italians, the old school kings of the city. The idea of the mob is fictitious. There are only those who make agreements, compromises that go on the other side of the law, depending on who is in office. More than one mayor of Providence has paid his respects to the old men who dwell in the shadows of myth and reality along Federal Hill. The Godfather need not apply to modern times, but there are those who make backroom deals and give desperate women and men a chance, only to punish them if they step out of line. These are the people who really own everything, from the strip clubs to the cigar lounges to the new, hip clubs that only cater to college kids. There are many secret organizations in the world. They just don’t always give themselves a goofy name and follow mandated traditions and pointless ceremonies.

  Mike Santalio is a good man whom Paul called “uncle” when he was a boy. He was younger than Paul’s father by almost ten years, but they were close. They shared experiences ranging from dark and desperate to delightful and successful. One of them solidified his career as a politician. The other became what every good politician needs: a man of the people, and solely for the people, who gives the people what they are too ashamed to personally fight the government for. In the time of Prohibition, Santalio’s kind supplied the alcohol. In these modern times, they cover every other illicit desire.

  Uncle Santalio owns a bakery. Paul’s been joking with him about being a baker ever since Santalio bought the place when Paul was sixteen. To this day, Santalio still makes Paul pay for his own bagels.

  As usual, Mike’s in the back room. Paul knocks, shouts, “Open up, you old fuck.”

  He cracks a genuine smile when Mike replies, “Pauly boy, get the fuck in here. What are you doin’ knocking?”

  Paul takes a deep breath. He can almost remember what his life was like a month ago. Narrow misses, humble pleasures, good friends, and the idea that he would somehow defy th
e odds, defeat his enemies, and succeed. He promises himself he won’t break down in front of one of the few people he respects. Then again, the way his thoughts have been jerking him around since that night at the mansion in Westerly, there’s still a chance he might grab Mike’s gun and end this horror show before it begins.

  Mike used to be fat enough to dress up as Santa Claus during the family holiday gathering that Paul always receives an invitation to. Now he’s bald, his gut’s gone, and he’s somewhat fit for a man in his sixties.

  “Where the hell’d you pop outta, huh?” Mike embraces him, gesturing to a greasy brown bag on his desk. “You want some clam cakes? Fresh from Narragansett. This nephew of mine wakes up every morning at the ass crack of dawn to surf. Then he brings me back a heart attack.”

  Clam cakes: a fistful of dough and clam fried into a red ball of delight. While Paul’s memory swells, his stomach does flip-flops.

  “Jesus. Look at you. You need coffee first.”

  Mike claps Paul on the shoulder and shakes his head, his glasses partially sliding down his round nose. Paul wonders how bad he looks. It takes a lot to burst Mike’s bubble, even when he’s mad enough to bend a guy’s neck with a pipe.

  Paul begins to refuse the offer for mind-altering caffeine, but the air inside the bakery is near freezing. Back in the old days, the oven would’ve nearly boiled the place over, but now bakeries have no affiliation with warmth. The heat of the day is a memory that clings wet to Paul’s skin. Save for the two employees behind the counter, the shop’s mostly empty. For once, the smell of baked goods does nothing for Paul.

  “Here, get that into ya. Those people…,” Mike mutters, shuts the door, and gestures for Paul to sit on the leather couch in his office. “They’ve brought you all the way in now, haven’t they?” Mike says, crossing his arms and leaning against his desk. Behind him and stretching from one corner of the wall to the other is a framed picture of Fenway Park, fortress of the Red Sox.

  Mike’s the one who encouraged Paul to go for the position at the Miskatonic. Mike, who knows Johan by name, had called him “just one of the guys in charge.” Paul knew the Miskatonic was vaguely associated with Mike’s organization, which spreads from Providence to Bar Harbor, Maine, with a concentration, of course, in Boston and fragments in New York. Paul was never entirely surprised by the Miskatonic’s hidden walls. Given its Prohibition history, Mike’s ties to the building itself make more sense than anything else in this damn city.

  “What?” Paul asks, realizing he spaced out.

  “You don’t have to tell me what they’re like. I’ve got an idea. They’re not hurting you, though, right? No threats? If you want out, you tell me. Only people who get to push you around are those bozos in city hall, and only the ones in that specific cocksuckin’ office.”

  Paul smiles, vaguely remembering the government officials he saw naked and chained at the Westerly mansion. “They treat me well….” He can still feel the warm bodies that have been pleasuring him nightly.

  “Then why you look like shit? You….” Mike’s seen it all. He jumps to the next logical conclusion, and Paul can’t blame him. “What kind of drugs are they into? Coke? The tar? Opiates? Something new? I’ve been wondering. I asked, but you know by now how they are when it comes to answering your questions.” Mike’s had business with the other hotels in the city. Special kinds of business involving girls, mind-altering consumables, and meetings with important people with important connections from different corners of the country.

  “There’s no drugs.” Paul remembers the worms from the party. They weren’t part of a dream. “I’m hung over, man. That’s all. Wanted to see ya; it’s been a while. How’s Carol?” Paul doesn’t mention how much he craved a friendly face far removed from the hotel. He was willing to shuffle all the way here like a zombie.

  “She’s good, great. Doesn’t ease up on me any, her age.” Mike’s arms loosen as he leans against the desk. Paul shouldn’t have come here. The gears in Mike’s brilliant mind are spinning. “You know, they asked me to tell you about the position, but they had their eye on you for longer. Hell, your dad had dealings with them. Aside from banging the maids at that hotel.”

  Paul didn’t know that, but his dad was private, only told his son the sort of things that would interest him. Burning his tongue, but liking the pain, the way it washes the bad taste out of his mouth, Paul attempts to get a solid sip down before replying, “What do you mean, dealings?”

  “You know. Miskatonic plays ball with powerful people from all over. People a bit classier than my kinda guys. Scientists, inventors, weird geniuses you read about in the Journal’s interest pieces. That was back when your dad was thinking of the governor’s seat. Till he backed down.”

  Paul remembers his dad one time drunkenly ranting about how he wouldn’t give money to people who didn’t appreciate him anymore. Maybe that had something to do with it. For Paul, it’s never been about money. Paul Jones Sr.’s last will and testament pretty much saw to that. But the other day, Paul glanced at his bank account, and it was not as he left it. With the last paycheck he received, you’d think the Miskatonic was a Four Seasons. Of course, Johan and his people own much more than just a hotel.

  “You ever hear about the Moon Shack?” Mike asks Paul, who flashes back to his dreams. He remembers the smell of people burning. How can he remember a smell from a dream? Those abominations, in the sky, the sea, there was nothing silly about them. They carried a feeling, a weight to what they were and what they signified. Paul’s hand spasms, and a splash of coffee lands on the couch.

  “Whoa, hey, what the fuck!” Being a typical neat-freak Italian, Mike pulls a rag practically out of thin air and tosses it to Paul.

  “Sorry, sorry, I just—” Paul tries to defend himself.

  “Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Mike says. It’s embarrassing how concerned Mike is for him. “You look bent out, kid. Jeez. Your back okay? Businessmen like us sit down too much. If you need a good chiropractor, I know of a guy right on Broadway—”

  “Nah, nah, I’m okay. And I’ve been there.” The doctor’s another Italian who grew up on the hill; Paul used to go drinking with interesting people like that. Mike originally taught Paul that knowing useful people leads to a simpler life. He gives all of his friends gift baskets loaded with wine and cigars come the holidays. Doctors, cops, lawyers, strippers, and, of course, politicians. You never know what you might need.

  “I should go, actually,” Paul says. “I have work in an hour, believe it or not.” It’s bullshit, and Paul’s kidding himself if Mike doesn’t detect that. Paul’s not sure when his next shift is. He’s not sure if anybody at the Miskatonic, except for his immediate staff, even cares.

  “Yeah, yeah, you sure as hell need a shower, all right, but we gotta get dinner soon, okay?”

  Paul sets the coffee on Mike’s desk and gives the guy a handshake that turns into a shoulder hug.

  “Remember, you’re working with them for you. They got their…belief in that place, and it’s okay to play along with it, but remember, you are in this for yourself. Not them. You hear? Remember, religion’s just a philosophy, and every man should live by one of his own making.” Mike bought himself a gold filling a year ago that catches in the light of the office.

  Paul clasps Mike on the arm before leaving. “I hear ya on that,” he says, lying through his teeth.

  Chapter 9: The Constellations, Painted

  Hap realizes his feelings are becoming dulled when he shuffles the two fat, pink duffle bags off the luggage cart and, not for the first time, wonders if he’s really just transporting bags of clothing. There are no metal detectors; there could be anything in these shoddily zipped containers. It seems possible that some of the larger, square suitcases could have a body stuffed in them. Hap makes himself sick thinking about a pretty girl being tossed away into something he himself lugged through the elevator and out into a car
waiting on the roundabout.

  The night before, Hap was hunched over his new four-hundred-dollar silver tube on a tripod, looking through it with one eye shut. He scanned the moon’s pale craters contrasted by shadow, looking for any signs that Tiff got swept up there. As if the moon’s somehow a magnet for special people.

  His camera, the damn thing that Tiff used to criticize him for living his whole life through, has been banished to the top of his dresser like a museum artifact on display. The pictures of Tiffany on its hard drive are voiceless ghosts. All Hap would have to do is give it life, and he could see her. He wouldn’t be able to look away; the resulting bedsores would bubble his skin into mush.

  What originally turned Hap on to photography was how to properly take a picture of the moon and capture some of its fool’s magic. That’s when his artist’s fever started. If there was one reason Tiff fell in love with him, it’s because he could take the moon from the sky, exactly how she saw it, and give it to her as an image she could admire over and over again. The moon is meaningless. It glows because of the sun, a big ball of cosmic radiation. It’s a stuck asteroid, a balled up glob of chalk. That’s the worst thing about the moon: it reminds you that something so damned beautiful can mean absolutely nothing. One of Tiff’s glow-in-the-dark stars from her old bedroom wound up in Hap’s luggage. Even though it has lost its ability to stick to a wall, it matters more to him than everything in the night sky.