The Moon of Letting Go

by Richard Van Camp

  “A ho!” he said. “Welcome.”

  Heavy and Slim nodded and held their hands out and up as if giving thanks for my arrival. I nodded.

  “Stand here,” the woman whispered and stood beside me. I felt her long thick hair sweep against my arm and was immediately dizzy with her woman power. Our kisses will create a home as I stab her with pleasure. She will understand that I killed bad men for a reason, that I squeezed them until their kicks became little and their mouths opened like children at peace. She will understand me as a child of something else. She will understand me and all the wickedness I put to sleep.

  I looked at our elder and her eyes were rolled back and her toothless mouth was open as if in a death mask. Her skin was a sick yellow and my legs began to ache. She was dying.

  The drummer pulled a long bone from under his drum. He held it high and looked to the ceiling before handing it to Heavy. Heavy took it and did the same. Slim approached the elder and gently pulled her sweater up. The elder’s stomach was so bloated her belly button popped out like a black thumb. She wasn’t pregnant. Whatever she had had completely engorged her stomach cavity. It was thick and lumpy, like something small and evil kneeling inside of her getting ready to jump out.

  The elder heaved, as if the mere brush of fabric against her skin was agony. She looked left and right. Her yellow eyes started to flutter and she began breathing hard, like a dog without a voice box: “Hach hach hach.”

  “Haaaaaaaaaaaaccccccccccccccccccccccccccch,” she exhaled. Her eyes rolled back and forth in her skull, like they couldn’t get a lock on anything in front of her. I winced and instinctively backed up. The smell that rolled off her was dank and wrong for a human. This was the hot smell of death.

  The drummer raised his drumstick and brought it down hard once. Boom! It rang and I winced. Heavy raised the bone up again and this time I knew what it was: an eagle whistle. I’d seen one in lock up. But it had been sharpened like a shank.

  The drummer raised his drumstick again as Heavy raised the whistle like a knife, gripping it like a dagger. “What?” I heard myself say.

  The drummer brought his drumstick down onto his angel drum—Boom!—as Heavy punched the whistle into the elder’s stomach and we heard a huge “Whoomp!” like a blown tire.

  “No!” I yelled.

  I heard hissing. At first I thought it came from the old woman, but it sounded like it was coming from under the bed, as if something was alive under there. Then I realized it was emanating from someone standing behind me. The people, including the long-haired beauty who’d guided me here, had their heads bowed. They were shaking their reeds to create a wind and they were all humming now. I saw the shirtless boy who had blown me kisses sitting at the top of the stairs. He looked to me and grinned. He held up his hand as if to wave and I saw he had a large feather. I felt immediately weak and wanted to run, but I looked back to see what was hissing behind me now.

  Slim walked forward as Heavy stepped back and something black started to bubble out of the top of the whistle. At first it was dark bubbles, but then it spurted, up into the air, on the sheets—like lumpy oil—and that’s when Slim moved quickly and put his mouth over it, sucking with all he had, using the whistle as a big straw, to catch what Aunty had coming out of her.

  “No,” I said and tried to move.

  “Watch,” the woman said. Her hand pushed against my back.

  “This is bad,” I panicked.

  And that’s when Slim raised the eagle whistle towards me, slick with blood, and sprayed it in my face. “Fuck!” I yelled and fell back, tripping. The sick blood was hot, rancid and slick.

  As I opened my mouth to yell, he sprayed me again and I gagged, swallowing the blood spew as I tried to breathe and that was when it twisted deeper inside me, popping my rib cage. My eyes were immediately sealed shut by something hot and sticky. I couldn’t speak. What I had under my tongue was now in my throat. I couldn’t even gag. It thickened and moved like a hot muscled tongue working its way to my stomach. Ghost Bear, I wanted to yell. Help me!

  Hands went through my pockets grabbing my keys and wallet. “Stop,” I wanted to say, but nothing came. I tried swinging and kicking but my body was locked as if in seizure. I felt a hundred hands around me, lifting me, kissing my stomach and feeling my hair. “Thank you,” they said. “Thank you. You are the way. You are the way.” I felt soft reeds grace my body like sharp feathers. I felt myself being lifted up the stairs, through the kitchen and into the living room. I tried smelling the hotdogs and corn and only one nostril worked but all I smelled was a sweet rotting, and it was coming from me. All the while the people sang, “Hoooooooo Hoooooooo Ho Ho Hoooooooooooooo.”

  They carried me outside. Again I tried kicking, hitting and biting but my body was not my own anymore. My muscles and size were useless. Soon I felt the heat of the bonfire and could hear the wood popping and the rush of fire snapping upon itself, eating the air around it, breathing with tongues of light and lashing.

  I was laid to rest on grass. I could feel that much and I felt as if a hundred people were around me. I could hear the wind pick up and branches in the trees started to snap. Thunder started to rumble across the sky.

  “Husband,” a voice said.

  I tried to look around but I was blind. What had sprayed me had hardened inside me. I was frozen.

  “Husband,” the voice said. “I am here.”

  “Help me,” I tried to say. “Lightning. I can’t—”

  “You are the way,” another voice whispered.

  “Husband, I am going to wash you,” the woman said. I could hear Chumps panting beside me, like he was thirsty and excited. I felt his hot breath against my hair and he licked my ear.

  “I have to go,” I tried. “I can’t be outside—”

  She said nothing. Instead, I felt a hot washcloth spread across my eyes and nose. I was filled with the smell of mint and rust. It took all my strength but I opened one eye to see her looking down on me. She was smiling with tears in her eyes. She was beautiful as she wept and her tears were tears of happiness. She wiped my face gently one more time and what was on the cloth was bloody and black.

  “She comes,” she said. “Look.”

  She positioned my head in such a way that I could see the house and the angel on the mountain. My body was filled with something brutal: something completely inside me, and it was bubbling, growing, reaching. I felt sick, felt like throwing up. My stomach started to roll.

  The old woman was now a woman in her twenties walking towards us, in a red star blanket carrying the drum. How I knew it was her was because she had the dragonfly tattoo across her face. Her hair was longer, sweeping behind her, and she looked at me with a peace and grace and command. I felt my body growing cold with every step she took.

  I looked up to my left. Heavy and Slim now had the faces of otters. They looked at me and nodded. “You’re a wolf who’s been limping your whole life,” one said. The other nodded. “The smell of humans has kept you weak.”

  Even though they had otter faces, their hands were human. The firelight flickered off the black orbits of their eyes. Three figures approached me from the shadows of the bonfire and they were men who had otter faces, too. They looked at me and tilted their heads left. One looked to Slim and handed him the three bags of cocaine.

  “Wait,” I tried but my voice started to leave me. What was inside me was now pushing up, trying to stand, causing me to arch my back, pushing my heels against the earth.

  “Hey!” I said and tried to raise my arm.

  Something started to bubble in my stomach. Cancer? Was it cancer tumoring inside of me? I felt it push my lungs and voice box up towards my throat. One otter handed the black leg bone to the other and he started to slice each bag of cocaine open.

  “Don’t—” I tried to warn them. The wicked wicked man will drown the kids first, making you watch
before he takes a blowtorch to the women’s faces—I’m to pop his neck and kill him when he calls Pistol because he is bad.

  “Look,” the woman said as she sat behind me, easing my head up gently to face forward, as if we were lovers, sitting in the park, watching our children play together. Heavy threw the cocaine that was in the bag up into the air, and it flew, catching itself, exploding into a spirit of white that held itself in the air. Each grain of white glistened like snow back home in a field of perfect light.

  “We’ve been calling you home for years. We had to know it was you, but I knew. I knew it was you when I saw you.” She kissed my forehead and her lips were burning with cold. “You’ve come home. Your family is waiting for you. Our children are waiting to be born with you.”

  Slim grabbed the second bag and walked to my right, doing the same. When he threw the cocaine into the air, it caught white fire and that’s when I saw the wings blossom behind them.

  “Angels,” she whispered behind me.

  The otters walked together to my left. They ripped open the third bag and they threw the cocaine up in the air, and before us three angels uncurled in the air. The mountain was east. The angels were around us in a circle of south, west and north. I looked to the faces of the angels and they were looking at me with curiosity, waiting to see what I’d do. The wind gathered around me and I heard thunder again, this time closer.

  “You are the way,” the dragonfly lady whispered and knelt beside me, placing the drum she carried upon my chest.

  I tilted my head and I felt something start to seep from beneath my fingernails. I coughed. “Cah….”

  “You’re going to come back as our leader. This woman is your wife. Your children are waiting for you. It is our time once more.” She motioned to the woman behind me. I rolled my eyes up to look at her. My wife was now a red fox, crying. She brought something iron and sharp up, under my chin. The blade caught my stubble.

  “Take our sickness with you,” Dragonfly Woman said as she nodded to the fox.

  “Wait—” I tried as she pulled. My skin split and blood sprayed out of me in a jet I heard slap my boots.

  Dragonfly Woman took a long torch that had ignited from the fire and made her way past me. Hundreds of people with the faces of otters, goats, foxes, deer and bear now started to follow her. One by one they all took the reeds they were carrying and they dropped them onto the fire. Each reed went up, almost like a firework taking off. I heard Chumps start to whimper beside me. As the people walked away, they crouched and dropped to four legs, their skin becoming coats of fur, the firelight catching their silvery muzzles and throats.

  “You’re going to lead us all, husband,” my future wife said as a red fox and kissed my forehead softly. “Do not fear this.” My pant legs and shirt started to soak through with my own blood. I looked up and saw her sweet eyes looking down at me. Her breath was of sage, berries, smoke. Her muzzle twitched as a tear made its way down her snout. “You’re going to take us home,” she whispered and kissed me softly on the lips. Her cold nose brushed my face.

  Heavy and Slim walked through the angel wings and stood on either side of me. Each pulled out a drum and started to play, singing the song they’d sung in the basement, “Ooooooo oo oh oooooo.” And there was the design of the black wolf with light coming out of its mouth and eyes on both of them. I could see now that its body was being struck by lightning. This was the same design as the one on the drum that lay across my body.

  A little otter wearing blue jeans came forward. He had an otter face but a human body. I saw his little brown tummy and nipples. He seemed afraid to speak to me but he held onto the large feather of a spotted eagle, which he touched to his forehead before kneeling. Our eyes met as he reached out and placed the feather in my hair. “I’m sorry I doubted you.” He kissed me. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe in you.”

  Son? My son? My wife as a red fox looked at me with tears in her animal eyes and nodded. She dipped her head and sent out a low call from her throat, a “whip whip” to our child. I looked and two small girls with the faces of foxes—the twin girls who’d been wearing dresses—stood behind their brother. They too held large, spotted feathers in front of their faces. They knelt by me, before taking my hands, their eyes catching the light.

  “How?” I wanted to ask. “How can this be?”

  “A deal was made for you,” my wife said, touching my forehead with her wet nose. I felt her hot tears spread along my ears and neck. She began to wash my face with what smelled like tanned hide soaked in rain water.

  “Come home, Papa,” one of my girls said, brushing my arms with her feather, before she placed her hand over my heart. Thunder started to rumble above me.

  “Take your skin off,” the other said, brushing my chest with her feather. This was a washing ceremony. I knew this. It must have been to wash all my wickedness away. “I have missed you for so long.”

  “We’re waiting for you,” my boy whispered, sweeping his feather over my legs. He was strong. He placed my legs together like Jesus on the cross. They began to wash my throat and hands. With each sweep, the air felt cool upon me.

  “The sky has to touch him first,” my wife said, kissing my forehead so tenderly that tears filled my eyes. “All your life you’ve tracked us and now we’re here.” She looked up at the thundering sky and pulled the three hair ties off her wrist. “Come inside,” she said to the children. “Sky fire is coming.” She knelt, leaned close and tied all three feathers into my hair. “You are our resurrection.” She kissed me softly on the lips. “You’ve been gone too long. Our children wait with me for your return. I love you. We love you. Our people wait.”

  My children started to wail. Long cries from the back of their throats and under their tongues. I heard them leave with their mother, taking their pitiful cries with them. Her cry was a low longing moan, deep from her chest, a trill of sorrow. How I wanted to comfort them all. But I was sinking inside.

  I felt my hands rise from my sides as my vision started to fade. Sheet lightning arced over me as thunder tore the sky. The angel on the mountain turned to fire while the three angels watching me became a beautiful blue. The air sizzled and whipped around me. The people of the earth—earthworms—swam out of the ground and I could hear them whisper with their ancient tongues: “You are the way. You are the resurrection.” The grass charred and started to smoke around me as the electricity snapped and sizzled in the air above. The sky blackened. I could see stars.

  The angel on the mountain exploded into fire. The three angels above me turned towards the city. I could feel their wings fanning me in hot drafts as they flew, and the earth trembled in their path. After them swarmed thousands more, and more, and with them their children. All of them held what looked like swords in each hand. Birds in the thousands swirled in clouds above me before bursting into horrific flame. And so did the mountain. All that beetle kill caught fire and began its way. I felt the earth rise up from under me to hold me, to cradle me, and I felt a heartbeat, the heartbeat of the earth, as I started to float. As my skin tightened, as my teeth fused, I finally—the sky had gathered for me. Flashes and flares started to pop and catch around me as my fingernails caught fire. I finally—a great rush blew through me. I closed my eyes and arched my back and the land became water. I finally—I started to sink and felt the hair on my body erupt with electricity, the feathers in my hair ignited to flames as a blue bolt from heaven tore through the sky towards me, blowing voltage through me, annihilating everything white. I was born a giant to become this—a child of something else—and, oh, my Maker, as I burst into flames I have finally found my way home….

  Don’t Forget This

  Long time ago, oh about ten years now I guess, there was this bush cook. You probably met her in your journeys. See if you can guess who she is, eh?

  Well, all the time there were people at her house, eating, eating, eating. She cooked all da
y. And, well, if you brought her food she’d cook for you. She was on welfare so she was happy as long as her bills were paid and her daughter was fed and oh lots of stories, boy! Ever lots....

  Well, she made this one friend, Shirley, we’ll call her (’cause it’s a secret). And Shirley, she bring Aunty lots of food: back strap, short ribs, kidneys—real traditional food as she has brothers who hunt. Aunty can tell Shirley is lost, like how insomniacs wander sometimes with their spirits walking three days behind them now....

  So Aunty and Shirley they become close and Aunty can tell that Shirley is running from something—or maybe hiding. So! She goes out of her way to be good to Shirley ’cause Shirley loves Auntie’s daughter, Mary. Mary loves Shirley and Shirley asks if she can baby-sit. For once now, Aunty has a babysitter she can trust and Shirley won’t take her money ’cause she says being with Mary is enough. For the first time in so long, Aunty feels free. (Sssshhhh. She gonna look for a man!)

  So she go out and have good time. (She found one on her first night now!) Oh she have a good time. That man sure know how to dance and use his hands and he smell so nice and sweet! When she come home now, Shirley has the house cleaned and Mary is asleep in her bed. Shirley thanked Aunty for such a great night before Aunty can thank her and they become best friends.

  So now every time after that, Shirley come over with a present for Mary. Sometimes toys, sometimes dolls, sometimes McDonald’s. Aunty now, she don’t have too much money to get stuff like that for Mary and she sees the way Mary’s eyes light up when she gets toys like that, so what she do is she wait one night after Mary goes to sleep and she tell Shirley, “Shirley, you know you are my new best friend. I have to tell you. I’m so happy you look after my baby girl so good but it hurts me when you bring toys for her that I can’t afford to get. I don’t want my girl to think toys are love. I want her to know stories and family and friends and healthy food are love. We don’t have lots of money, but we have a safe home and I’m proud of that.”