The Moon of Letting Go

by Richard Van Camp

  Now that our ritual was over, Brutus looked at me seriously and Clarence covered his mouth to stop from bursting out laughing. “Grant,” Brutus said. “Want to tell us why you’re running naked with Lucas Spears’s dog?”

  Clarence burst out laughing and slapped his knees. “I’m sorry,” he kept saying. “You shoulda … you shoulda … Grant … you shoulda … seen your face … when we caught you.”

  I don’t know how Brutus did it but he kept his most serious face on and didn’t move while Clarence fell off the couch behind him. And that was when I burst out laughing. I laughed so hard I started rolling around my couch. Clarence would get going and we were practically in sync with our stops and starts. I’d look up and Brutus would be looking at me, breathing through his nostrils, trying not to laugh.

  And that only made me laugh harder.

  After a while, I sat up, wiped my eyes and put on a serious face.

  And then I told them. I told them everything. I told them about Justin and reminded them about catching him streaking that one night out on the highway, and, for the first time in forever, there were no jokes, no sarcasm, no punch lines. The boys listened as friends. It was Clarence who looked down first and started tracing his finger over the lip of his Coke. Brutus looked down second. I realized that this was the first time since Justin’s funeral we had been this sombre, and so I spoke about what a great week I’d been having.

  “Well that’s why we came by,” Clarence said. “We haven’t seen you around.”

  “I been looking for work,” I said. “I’m feeling good. I wake up and I want more, you know? I’m tired of drinking, being broke, not having a job. I’m tired of being lonely.”

  Clarence looked at me and looked at Brutus. “Sounds good to me.”

  Brutus looked at both of us but didn’t say anything. He took a sip of his Coke and Clarence and I did the same. After we were done, Brutus raised his can and said, “For Justin.”

  We raised our Cokes: “For Justin.”

  “When are you going again?” Brutus asked.

  “What?” Clarence and I asked together.

  “You heard me: when are you going again?”

  I studied Brutus in a glance. He was being serious. “I go after midnight. The bugs die down then and there’s a warm breeze.”

  “Can I come next time?” Brutus asked.

  I saw something in Brutus I hadn’t seen before. All our lives, he’d had everything I wanted: best Star Wars toys, best bikes, best guns, cool trucks, and, for the first time, he wanted something I had found. He and I had always competed in our quiet way for leadership in our little group and it felt nice to be asked as the boss. “Sure,” I nodded.

  Clarence looked at Brutus and then he looked at me. “Wait a minute. Are you guys serious?”

  I looked to Clarence. Ever since we were kids, Clarence had always puppy-dogged us.

  “I’m serious,” Brutus said. “I’d like to try it.”

  “Well, I’m coming too,” Clarence said, and he said it like he always had, like a little brother.

  “Okay,” I said. “But don’t tell anyone. Come over at midnight. Tomorrow.”

  Clarence raised his hand.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Um,” Clarence paused, “does Snoopy have to come along?”

  Brutus started laughing. “Why, Clarence? Are you scared he’s gonna get hungry for wieners and beans, or what?”

  We had a good laugh about that one.

  “He’s been running with me for a week,” I said. “He likes it.”

  “Can’t we do this without him? I mean, what if he gets hungry?”

  “Think of him as our little guardian,” Brutus said. “We’re Dogribs, after all.”

  That put a nice spin on it. Clarence liked that. So we raised our Cokes and polished them off together.

  That was a week ago. And now our ritual is as follows: we gather at my house at midnight, strip down in my porch. Brutus leaves his clothes on my washer. Clarence leaves his clothes on my dryer. I leave my clothes on the water heater. At first, it was funny: all three of us naked in my backyard warming up.

  I was surprised that out of all of us Brutus was in the best shape. He traps, hunts—good Participaction, I guess. The first couple of nights Clarence got so thirsty I wondered if he was going to make ’er. But he did. To my delight, we tackled the landslide and ran right by a party in progress (nobody saw, thank God). We even streaked across the potato field. We had contests to see who could touch all four stop signs at the four-way. Guess what? I won!

  On our first run together it was Clarence who reminded me of something I had completely forgotten. “Remember Leonard?” he asked.

  “Our babysitter?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What about him?”

  “Remember that time he told us about his little gang of roller skaters?”

  I looked up. “I remember something. Go on.”

  “He said that he and his girlfriend and a bunch of their buddies would go roller-skating at midnight and they’d all put on that song, Come on Eileen by Dexy’s Midnight Runners. ’Member?”

  “Oh yeah,” I said, “and the cops would try and chase them.” I had forgotten that part.

  That’s when Clarence pulled out a CD. “I burned the song. Wanna crank it?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Put ’er in.”

  So there we were all getting undressed while singing along to Come on Eileen.

  It became our anthem. There we’d be: in my backyard with two speakers aimed out my bedroom window: naked, rocking back and forth singing: “Come on Eileen!” And we’d all raise an imaginary glass and say the next line: “And we can sing just like our fathers.” Once we were all warmed up, we’d walk out into my driveway and there’d be Snoopy waiting patiently for all of us. We’d all give him a pet and, for some reason, he’d always run beside me. Maybe because I was the founder of our group.

  So this was our agreed ritual: Monday night was run-for-your-ex night; Tuesdays we ran for our parents; Wednesdays we ran for everyone in town; Thursdays we ran for our ancestors; Fridays was happy hour—you could run for whoever you wanted; Saturdays was run for no cancer or diabetes; and Sundays was run for the Creator and all our blessings.

  Tonight we cranked our anthem as we warmed up and let ourselves out into the driveway. No moon but she was going to be another glorious evening.

  “Friday,” I said. “Who are we running for tonight?”

  “For Beth,” Brutus said. “I really screwed her over. I’m hoping she’s happy.”

  “She got married, huh?” I asked. “To that guy in Chip?”

  He nodded. “I heard he was a good guy. I hope they have a great life.”

  I nodded. “Okay,” I took a big breath and looked at my buddies. “Well, it’s been a week running with you rowdies and I think it’s only right that we give thanks to Justin and his family who inspired all of us.”

  “Ho,” Brutus said, but Clarence was quiet.

  We turned to Clarence and he was looking away. “For Belinda,” he said.

  “Belinda?” Brutus asked.

  Clarence nodded.

  I was curious. “Why Belinda?”

  “You’re in love or what?” Brutus asked as he stretched.

  “She’s pregnant,” Clarence said.

  Brutus and I froze. I seen a tear shine off the tip of Clarence’s nose.

  “What?” I asked.

  He nodded. “She told me she was pregnant.”

  “When was this?” Brutus asked.

  I walked over to Clarence. Brutus did the same.

  Clarence kept looking down. “She called me this morning.”

  “I thought she was with Randy,” Brutus said.

  Clarence shook his head and held his hand over his eyes. “They
broke up months ago.”

  “Holy,” Brutus asked. “What you gonna do?”

  That was it. Clarence started to cry quietly. I reached out and felt Clarence’s back and Brutus did the same. I couldn’t look at Brutus because if he was crying, that’d be it. I’d lose it.

  “Hey hey,” Brutus said. “It’s okay, Clarence. We can help you. You made us uncles, buddy.” Brutus had tears in his eyes.

  “I’m scared,” Clarence said. “I’m not ready to be a dad yet.”

  I blinked my tears away. “Yeah. You’re not alone, Clarence. We can help out.”

  Clarence wiped his eyes. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. Can we just run?”

  “Sure, buddy,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  Snoopy was sitting on my lawn, waiting patiently for us to begin.

  “Ready?” I asked and looked to my buddies.

  “You lead,” Brutus said.

  I nodded. “We can swing by Belinda’s house.”

  Brutus looked down. “Swing is right.”

  We all snickered. Even Clarence. Snoopy started wagging his tail.

  Belinda was west. We’d streak by there later. Tonight, I wanted the highway, just like Justin. Tonight, I was going to tell the boys to run blind. Tonight, I wanted to feel it: sweat on my shoulders, full on filled with peace. Tonight, I wanted to feel it all, just like Justin did. “Zunchlei,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  So we ran.

  medicine

  Love Walked In

  The horror show began the exact second I told the truth. This was right after Janette came to town. Single Mom. Body of a stripper.

  Kevin was like, “Check out the yummy mummy.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  I always thought women with short hair could only ever be cute. I was wrong. She’s white, French. She even sparkled in French. Just listening to her in the Northern line-up warmed The Hammer nicely. The prized ivory of a white woman has put me in the worst kind of heat. Then Wendy’s masturbation incident happened, and I lost everything around me.

  • • •

  I saw Janette that aft getting out of her car as I cruised down Candy Lane in my Dad’s old truck. She saw me. She was playing hopscotch with her girl and smiled as I drove by for the fiftieth time down her street. God Bless Candy Lane. She stopped to pick something up, and it was the way she bent over that got me. Her shorts were so tight they cupped her ass and I could see her pubic mound. I had to keep on driving, pull over by the airport, turn off and empty myself in gushes onto the high grass. I came squadrons.

  The school was still closed until they found a new principal, and this was my life: Jonathan hated me. Nobody waved back; the girls I grew up with ignored me. Fuck them all.

  Donna kept calling. She wanted me so badly. She had been cute but that was about it. She had let her hair grow, and that sharpened the curves of her cheeks. Her eyes had gotten darker over the years, like her Mom’s, and she was still sort of pretty. And she had those tits. Her ass was a little fat and she was short. I couldn’t get her legs over my shoulders if I tried. Funny how she fazed me with those words outside the cafe after the showdown with Jon—“You’re a hero”—’cause I was anything but….

  Janette, for some reason, had chosen Doug the Slug Stevens as her bull. I couldn’t believe this. The Slug raped his fourteen-year-old babysitter years back. That’s how he lost his kids. How the Slug got Janette was beyond me, but I was gonna sink his fuckin’ boat just like I sunk the principal’s.

  Donna was knocking on my window last night at two. Her folks were Cree and let her run wild, I guess, whenever and wherever she wanted. She did three taps, waited and did three more. I waited until she left and stroked one off for Janette.

  In the morning, Mom brought me a CD as I was combing out the back stoop of my mullet. Jonathan and I grew them on purpose because we were holdouts for the ’80s.

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  “You tell me,” she said. It was a CD case: Samantha Fox’s Touch Me.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Well somebody left it for someone here, and I know it wasn’t intended for me—and it better not be for your father.”

  I opened it up and saw that Donna had written her name on the inside sleeve. “I must have dropped it last night.”

  Mom looked at me, stared at me actually. Her eyebrows rose, then lowered. She swept the back of her hand with her palm and this was a move she used to make when she still smoked. She was nervous. “We need you to clear out that brush in the back yard. Snow’s coming soon and it’ll block the skidoos.”

  I figured we were back to business. For a while there, I knew my folks were worried about me. After the social worker came and the RCMP took my statement, I wouldn’t leave the house. No one called. The weight of my own clothes on my body made me feel like an old man, and it felt like someone was doing a handstand on my shoulders, pushing me down. I worked out twice a day in the basement, stayed in my room for hours just listening to Van Halen, The Cult, The Outfield. All I did was read Playboy and try to plan my future sex life: sex with Janette, break her heart, then move on, find someone younger for sex in an elevator, the Mile High club, sex in the bathtub, sex in the shower, sex outside, sex in the rain, sex in the snow, sex out at the cabin, sex on the trapline!

  These days, the only someone who calls is Donna, but at least I’m out and about. The one good thing that happened—and the only reason I’m out and about—is I got a call from Mr. Henderson aka Boss Hog over at Northern Lights Log Homes.

  “I heard what you did,” he said. I could hear chainsaws in the background. “I need a log peeler who’s willing to work hard before the snow comes. After that, we’ll see if we can train you on the crane. The money’s okay. I can’t compete with government, but you’ll at least learn how to build your own log home. What do you think?”

  Mom and Dad were watching me, and I knew Dad had put the word out that I needed an arrow of light to fly my way.

  “Sure,” I shrugged. “Why not?”

  So I worked all day, peeling logs for Boss Hog. The last thing I wanted to do on coffee break or lunch was ask questions or try to learn about building log homes. The first two days I forgot to bring gloves and shredded my forearms peeling the spruce and pine. After a while I didn’t feel it much anymore when the bark bit me. The good news was I was doing push-ups and pull-ups when the boss wasn’t around and I got tanned at the same time. To my surprise, that Samantha Fox CD was pretty good. I put it on low and got to work. To my even bigger surprise, Janette drove by in the government truck. I pinched my helmet a few times through my pockets so The Hammer’d swell as she drove by.

  I stood up and smiled. I had my shirt off and was sweating something fierce. She smiled back when I flexed the pecs and even turned her head to look directly at me when she came by the second time on her way home from work. Nice.

  I ran behind the biggest log pile and jacked off in jets to blast a web of fury and hysteria all over the logs behind the woodpile outside the work site. I surprised myself with how great it felt to come, the relief of it all, but the force and burn didn’t fade. It just got better and better. I got quite the tool here that’ll last me for life and lead me through a field of women.

  • • •

  Later, at coffee break, I walked into the office.

  “Who’s Donna?” Boss Hog asked as he looked up.

  “A friend,” I said, putting my gloves and hatchet away. “Why?”

  “Tell her to quit calling here,” he said. “She’s called twice today.”

  “You got it,” I said, and blushed in front of the guys.

  He paused before getting into his big ass Duelly. “She wants you to meet her for fries and a Coke after work.”

  Harold, Boss Hog’s oldest son, grinned. “How ’bout fries and a cock after work?” The crew howl
ed like wolves and I looked away. Goddamn him. Fuck he had a big buffalo head. Why didn’t he get his front teeth replaced?

  And goddamn that Donna....

  • • •

  “Don’t call me at work anymore,” I said on the phone.

  “I want to see you,” she said.

  I was drip drying from the shower. The tan was coming along good. I was trimming my muff with Dad’s moustache scissors. I wanted to have the perfect V, like what I saw in Mom’s Playgirl. “Not a good idea,” I said.

  “Remember when we used to go out?”

  “Not really,” I said. “Bye.”

  • • •

  Janette drove by one more time in the government truck checking the mail for the college. There were four roads to the post office. She chose the road that I was always working next to, which was the slowest. Was I imagining this? No. She looked back, waved and smiled. I waved, stepped out on the road, watched her. She tapped her brake lights twice just to let me know that I wasn’t imagining us.

  I was gonna fuck her so hard it was gonna be brutal….

  I re-read all of my Dad’s Playboys, couldn’t find one Playmate that even remotely looked like Janette. Snuck one of Dad’s condoms from the bathroom and came back into rubber.

  • • •

  Donna called during supper, twice. Mom told her to call back after seven.

  “Is that Barb’s daughter?”

  I scooped a big chunk of caribou into my mouth and nodded.

  “I always wondered what happened to you two.”

  “Mom,” I said, “we were in grade five.”

  Dad nudged me under the table with his leg. “You know,” and I could tell I was gonna get a speech because he pulled out his favourite toothpick and moved to his chair by the woodstove. “I don’t know how they do it in Africa, but here in the north, it’s the bulls who pick, hey?”