Unhooking the Moon

by Gregory Hughes

  Sometimes I imagined having conversations with my mother, especially when I was feeling down. She was kind and patient and she always gave me good advice. Then she would ruffle my hair and carry on with the ironing. I always had my imaginary mom ironing for some reason.

  After I had taken care of Dad’s room I helped the Rat clean downstairs. We did a lot of things around the house, just to keep busy. We vacuumed the carpets, wiped the windows, and dusted wherever it needed dusting. We even cleaned out some of the closets. When we were done we made our way down to the prairie garden, which had now become a cemetery. The silver crucifix that the Rat had used as a headstone caught the sun and blinded us as we came.

  ‘Omens don’t get much better than that!’ said the Rat.

  We planted a nice mixture of prairie flowers over Dad’s grave and then we each said a silent prayer.

  ‘Amen,’ said the Rat when my lips had stopped moving. Then she looked up at the sky. ‘He’s not here any more. His spirit has flown the coop. Bye, Dad!’ she shouted. ‘Have a pleasant trip! And say hello to Mom!’ She looked around the sky as though expecting a voice to shout back, and then she looked at me. ‘What do you want to do now, Bob? You wanna play soccer? I need someone to go in goal.’

  ‘Come on, then,’ I said, just to keep her happy.

  It was late when I switched off the lights. Stepping out on to the front porch, I locked the door and put the keys in the flowerpot. Then I looked through the window at the lifeless living room. It was dark and ghostly as though no one had ever lived there. If we never made it back, I thought, it would be like we never existed. Suddenly I felt like going back inside. I felt like turning on all the lights and the stove. I felt like cooking and baking so that warm smell would fill the house again. I felt frightened.

  ‘It’ll be OK, Bob,’ said the Rat.

  I turned to see her sitting on her bike with her rucksack on her back. I always felt I had to be brave in front of the Rat because I was her big brother. But right there and then I could have burst out crying. But I didn’t. I put on my rucksack and mounted my bike. ‘Let’s ride,’ I said like some Western hero and we rode off towards the river.

  Everything seemed strange that night. The land was so deserted we could have been on the surface of a barren planet. And the moon was so bright it gave us shadows as we rode. What’s more it had a pink tint. The Rat kept looking at it, no doubt trying to decipher what sort of omen it meant. But I knew that pink was almost red and red would have been a bad omen according to anyone’s way of thinking.

  We rode until we came to the trees and then, dismounting our bikes, we made our way down to the river. We never needed our flashlights, with the moon being so bright. But it went dark as we passed through the trees and the darkness always looks darker when you’re feeling down. I was glad when we reached the river and, putting my bike in the Marlin, I untied the ropes.

  The Rat rustling in the bushes sounded louder than it should. ‘Shush!’ I told her. She froze as she lifted her bike into the boat and then she lowered it gently. Getting in, we pushed away from the bank and paddled downriver. I didn’t want the neighbours in the nearby houses hearing the engine. We were never out on the river that late. If they heard the engine they might think the Marlin was being stolen and call the cops.

  Once we were at a safe distance I started her up and pulled back on the throttle. The cool foamy air put goose pimples on my arms and made me shiver, but it didn’t seem to bother the Rat. She looked back at me every now and again, her mousy-blonde hair blowing in the breeze. I swear she was smiling.

  I slowed down as we passed the imitation lighthouse that lit up that part of the Forks, and we cruised towards St Boniface. As we neared the jetty I switched off the engine and we drifted alongside it. The Rat jumped on to the jetty and tied us fast. I got out and unloaded the bikes.

  ‘Bye, Marlin,’ said the Rat. ‘The Marlin’s spirit is unhappy that we’re leaving.’

  She seemed more upset over leaving the Marlin than she was over Dad dying.

  ‘She’ll be OK,’ I told her.

  ‘It’s a he, silly.’

  We put on our rucksacks and pushed our bikes up the ramp. When we got to the road I looked at the Esplanade Riel. I thought about all the times we had gone under it on our way to school, and I thought of Miss Gabriela Felipe Mendez. I would have given all the land that Dad left us just to talk to Gabriela. To tell her how bad I was feeling and to have her put her arms around me. It would have been so nice to have her put her arms around me!

  ‘Come on, Bob. What are you waiting for?’

  We cut through St Boniface like criminals on the run, and took every back street we could to the Symington Yard. When we got there we lifted the bikes over a small fence and scurried behind a signal box. The place looked dismal in the moonlight and the stench of diesel wafted in the warm air. And there were so many freight trains, containers, and boxcars. How Harold was going to find us I’d never know. And the more I thought about it the more I worried. How could Harold, who had difficulty walking, leave his house in the middle of the night and make his way down here? And then find us when he got here! And to add to my worries a guard was coming towards us. His flashlight found the doors of the boxcars and the seals on the containers. It searched the wheels of the trains and the windows of the passenger cars.

  ‘He won’t come down here,’ whispered the Rat.

  And sure enough the beam of light hit the floor and the guard returned the way he came. Then, stepping out of the shadows, we saw two familiar figures.

  ‘Let’s go,’ said the Rat.

  I followed her out and we made our way towards Harold and Little Joe.

  ‘There’s no time to talk,’ said Harold. ‘Follow me.’

  We followed him in between two long freight trains. As we neared the end of the trains, an electric murmur flowed down the one to our right. Then there was a clanking sound as the engine pulled at the boxcars. Slowly the train began to move.

  ‘Quickly! Get in this one!’ said Harold pointing to a boxcar with the doors open.

  Little Joe grabbed the bikes and they were soon inside. Our rucksacks followed.

  ‘Take care of yourself, brother,’ said Joe. ‘Come back safe.’

  We hugged each other, something we had never done before, and I knew he would always be my friend. I climbed up into the boxcar and waited for the Rat. Harold removed a rucksack from his back. For a second I feared he would try and come with us. ‘It’s food for the journey,’ he said, handing me the rucksack.

  I wanted to say something nice but the words never came.

  ‘You overwhelmed me, Harold,’ said the Rat. ‘A girl could not ask for a better boyfriend.’

  ‘Do you think we’ll still get married?’ he asked. ‘When we’re sixteen?’

  ‘We do get married, Harold. It’s our fate.’ She kissed Harold on the cheek and then grabbed my hand. I pulled her inside. Little Joe and Harold walked after us as the train pulled away.

  ‘Close the doors until you’re out of town,’ said Little Joe. ‘Take care, brother! Take care, Marie Claire!’

  My father was dead. I was leaving home. And now I was waving goodbye to my best friends. If I felt sad before I felt even sadder now. When we pushed the doors closed it went dark. ‘Don’t put your flashlight on in case someone sees it,’ I said. And, sliding down the boxcar, I put my head in my hands.

  I stayed that way for some time and then I looked around me. It was too dark to see anything. And it felt strange being in the boxcar. It had an oily, musty smell and there was the constant sound of creaking wood and clattering metal. I thought I saw the Rat in the opposite corner. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘I’m over here.’

  It was then that I realized there could be someone else in the boxcar with us. The fear hit me like lead. I fumbled for my flashlight and switched it on. ‘Oh thank God!’

  The Rat looked worried. ‘You OK, Bob?’

  ‘Sure, come on – let’s g
et these doors open.’

  We tugged at the doors but they wouldn’t move. Then I found a hook-like catch over the handles. I tried to push it up but it was jammed.

  ‘What if we can’t get out?’ said the Rat.

  I felt a surge of panic. But then I saw a lever. I pushed it down, the catch rose, and I pulled them doors wide open!

  The Rat looked relieved. ‘Well done, brother.’

  We had passed through Winnipeg. I couldn’t say where we were because there was nothing visible, only the pitch-black of the prairies. We put our rucksacks near the doorway and dropped down. I lay there until my heart stopped pounding and then I sat up and looked at the night sky. There were more stars than I’d ever seen. There were billions. We always got good stars on the prairies, but nothing like this. All the constellations were visible and all the planets were out. Suddenly a shooting star skated across the sky and burned up in the atmosphere.

  ‘A sign from the Old Man,’ said the Rat.

  I turned to look at her. ‘You’re sad about him dying, right?’

  ‘Of course. I loved Dad and I’ll miss him a lot. But he was never happy, not really. He wanted to be with Mom and now he is.’

  ‘You don’t know that.’

  ‘Yes, I do. You see, Bob, when you die your spirit leaves your body and it heads for the heavens. It flies around the different solar systems and galaxies at many times the speed of light, visiting worlds we couldn’t even imagine. And being dead is your ticket to the stars, but you have to die to get there. Until that happens we can only dream about them.’ She looked at me, her eyes glinting in the dark. ‘I know you think I’m crazy, Bob. But I wouldn’t lie to you, not about this.’ She looked up at the stars. ‘Can you imagine Mom meeting Dad after all these years? I bet an angel brought him to her. And now she’s giving him a tour of the Milky Way and he’s singing to her like Frank. And he’s happy and I’m happy for him.’

  The Rat talked some garbage at times but that wasn’t one of them. I didn’t really believe what she said. But, like a child being told a fairytale, I felt better for hearing it.

  We opened up our sleeping bags and got in. The Rat was soon asleep. She could sleep anywhere, but I couldn’t. For a good while I gazed at those stars and imagined the Old Man and the mother I never really knew gliding around them. And the more I thought about it the better I felt. In time the rocking of the train lulled me to sleep. I slept, and the rat slept next to me.

  Chapter Six

  The boxcar shuddered and I woke to the sound of metal clattering against metal. We were cruising alongside green fields, with black and white cows, and in the distance I could see hills silhouetted against the rising sun. It was a nice sunrise, but it was too bright to look at.

  I opened the rucksack Harold had given us. There were cookies, sandwiches and cans of soda, as well as a large silver flask of hot water. There were packets of crisps, chocolate and fruit.

  ‘Any mocha?’

  I turned to see the Rat sitting up in her sleeping bag. ‘I doubt it.’ But searching the bottom of the bag, I found six sachets. Only the Rat could ask for mocha on a freight train and get it.

  We had a good breakfast sitting in the doorway of the boxcar. It was nice to eat and watch the land go by at the same time. There were blue lakes and turquoise rivers with fishermen wading through them. There were hills and rocky outcrops above which long-fingered buzzards seemed to float. Then there were more lakes and rivers followed by a sea of sunflowers that bathed in the sunshine.

  When the train curved for a bend we could see the front of the train and the engine that was pulling us. It slowed to a walking pace as the bend narrowed and we saw hundreds of prairie plants growing wild. Their buds exploded into a supernova of seeds that drifted on the breeze like tiny parachutes, a minute version of the Big Bang that had first put the stars in the sky.

  ‘The land in Ontario isn’t as flat as Manitoba,’ said the Rat.

  ‘How do you know we’re in Ontario?’

  ‘The train stopped last night and I was talking to some Native woman from Sioux Lookout.’

  ‘What? Where?’

  ‘Just some old Native woman. I traded her some cookies for water,’ said the Rat showing me the bottle of water. ‘She said we would find Uncle Jerome, but that we were in great danger. But I could have told you that.’

  I couldn’t believe I had slept through the Rat talking to some Native woman. I must have been really tired.

  The train moved faster and the Rat, having eaten, got up to brush her teeth. She spat the water out as far as it would go and then she sat down with her bare feet dangling out the doorway. I looked at the wheels spinning below her and I got an uneasy feeling.

  ‘Bring your feet in,’ I told her.

  ‘We’re not in danger yet, Bob. Besides, the boxcar has a good spirit. It’s glad we’re riding with it.’ She took a comb from her pocket and combed her hair. ‘I’m having so many dreams now that I’m without my big dream-catcher. I’ve brought a small one but it’s not doing much good. I dreamt I was on the top floor of a tall building. I go to sit down in a chair but I fall. It’s like I’m falling from a great height. All of a sudden I’m being carried upward by three angels. They put me on top of a skyscraper where there are hundreds more angels bathing in a silver sun. When I look around me there are hundreds of skyscrapers with hundreds of angels on top of them. They’re all sunbathing or playing or gliding from one skyscraper to another. They tell me I’ll stay with them until I’m better. But the funny thing is I don’t feel unwell. I dreamt about the Windigo as well.’

  ‘Windigos aren’t real.’

  ‘Of course they are!’

  ‘Have you ever seen one?’

  ‘No, but there are lots of things you can’t see that are real.’

  ‘Such as?’

  The Rat had a think. ‘Angels!’ she said. ‘Sometimes a person can come up and talk to you in the street. And you think they’re human, but really they’re an angel. There are angels everywhere. Sometimes a human being can have an angel inside them and all they do is good. They can have a demon inside them as well. Then they become Windigos or paedophiles and all they want to do is hurt people. Do you know how to spot the difference between a Windigo and a paedophile?’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Well, paedophiles hiss when they talk. But you have to listen real hard. And they pretend to be nice, especially to children. Whereas Windigos are never nice to anyone, but they are harder to spot. They’re not cowardly like paedophiles but they’re more violent, and their heads are full of crazy voices that make them growl. Windigos are big growlers. That’s how you can spot them.

  ‘Sometimes a human being can have an angel and a demon inside them and they fight for his soul. But the angel always wins in the end because one angel is more powerful than ten demons.’

  The Rat bewildered me sometimes! She really did! ‘Where do you get this stuff from?’

  ‘It just comes to me,’ she said in a matter-of-fact sort of way.

  Looks like the Windigo wasn’t the only one with crazy voices in his head. I don’t know why, but I never liked to talk to the Rat about her freaky ways. But now I was intrigued.

  ‘So … How do you know things are going to happen? Does a voice tell you?’

  ‘No, silly. Sometimes I see things in a dream or I get dreamlike images when I’m awake. But mostly I get a feeling that something will happen and the feeling gets stronger, that’s all.’

  ‘But you can see ghosts, right?’

  The Rat laughed.

  ‘That’s it! I’m never asking you anything again!’

  ‘You’ve been watching too many movies, Bob.’

  ‘Wait a minute! You told me you could see the ghosts of the Grey Nuns of Montreal in the St Boniface Cemetery!’

  The Rat laughed harder.

  ‘You lying Rat!’ I wasn’t speaking to her then. But the Rat didn’t care, she really didn’t!

  A road ran alongside the tracks and
a pickup truck kept up for a time, the driver waving out the window. Houses began to appear, and they appeared more often as we neared a town. When the train slowed we closed the doors over and looked through the gap. We saw a woman push her laughing child on a swing. Then the trees blocked them out. Then we saw a farmer on a tractor holding up the traffic. We passed a blue house, as big as a barn, and a water tower with the words JESUS LOVES YOU written on it. Then there was a fire station with proud, overweight firemen having their picture taken with small children. The fire engine looked a little old-fashioned, but sometimes old-fashioned things look nicer. And the kids, who were climbing all over it, looked like they were having a good time. But the train, clanging its bell, passed through the town without stopping, and so we reopened the doors and sat in the doorway. The houses drifted away after that and we rolled on to farmland where rows of red harvesters headed into the horizon, mowing the wheat as they went.

  ‘Hey, Bob, you see them geese up there?’ said the Rat pointing into the sky. ‘Did I ever tell you why they fly in a V-formation?’

  I never said anything. I still wasn’t speaking to her.

  ‘Well, the son of the West Wind and the grandson of the Moon was called Nanabush. And he was always getting into trouble. One day he was really hungry. He was dying for something to eat. Then what does he spot? A flock of geese resting on a lake. I know, he thought, I’ll swim underwater and tie their feet together and I’ll capture them all. So he got some twine and swam underwater, tying the birds’ feet together as he went. But an older smarter goose knew what was happening and she told the other geese. On her command they flew into the air dragging Nanabush with them. And to this day geese still fly in a V-formation. And the moral of this story is, just take what you need, don’t be greedy … Anything else to eat?’

  As the afternoon wore on, the food in Harold’s bag began to diminish. I had the appetite of a Marine and the Rat wasn’t far behind me. We kept on saying we’d save things for later but we’d eat them within the hour. We said we’d save the sandwiches for supper, but they were gone by noon. Food always tastes better when you’re not supposed to eat it.