Untying the Moon, page 23
Fourth of July is the next week, and Bailey’s swim kids from D.C. and Philadelphia arrive for what’s become the fifth annual Fifth of July Mullet Jamboree held on the Simmons-Martin part of the bluff. Each year different ones of the kids are able to make the trip, and this time four come from Philadelphia and three from Washington, with a chaperone mom for each group. Both convertibles await them at the station in Yemassee, and they wave at everybody on the road to Kirk’s Bluff—practicing for the parade.
The whole gang pitches in to decorate the cars for the Kirk’s Bluff Independence Parade and Miss Merissa for the Blessing of the Fleet afterwards. Sonny Girl will take her turn again next year. Posters on the sides of the cars say “BAILEY’S KIDS” and the seven of them switch back and forth between front seat and beauty queen spot in the rear. Curly stands beside Bailey for the first shift in Miss Ruby then trades to Ben in the Solid Gold Cadillac for the last leg of the parade.
In the Jericho River after the car parade Miss Merissa blazes in red, white, and blue banners and bows. Fourteen of them onboard blow kazoos and wave Lady Liberty mermaid streamers Bailey’s made, each streamer splotched with Curly applied glitter. Cecil pilots the boat and Leather Joe patrols the decks but the rest of them—Retta, Mariel, Bailey, Ben, MoJo, seven teenagers and two of their moms—make the Martin boat the envy of the river. George Simmons was pulling nobody’s leg when he said he’s had his fill of seafaring and cheers them on from the dock.
As is Jamboree tradition, they camp on May Isle, young people in tents, others in the cabin. They run and squawk and play soccer and softball and hacky sack, and there are contests for everything—farthest watermelon seed spit, most jumps off the dock, biggest water balloon splats, longest breath underwater, scariest ghost story. They catch crabs with chicken necks and practice casting the shrimp net. Whoever sees a dolphin gets to ring the bell, and it tolls intermittently all through the day. They whoop and holler and sing and are the silly selves unknown on urban streets back home. This is the first year Curly is old enough to be in the thick of it, and indeed she is.
Biggest event of all is the After the Fourth Float. Everyone gets an inner tube and everyone gets two tangerines. They plunge off the May Isle dock exactly an hour and a half before high tide, float past Heyward Cove and their Simmons-Martin bluff almost half an hour later, then past the public dock and the village of Kirk’s Bluff itself, past the oyster factory. When the tide turns they ride the hour of it back to the bluff for the customary shrimp and crab boil. Keeping tabs on the tangerines is as much fun for the city kids as it was for Bailey and Ben, and when the dolphins surface around them they’re wild with joy.
The weather forecast is the same as they’ve had for days—partly cloudy, chance of isolated thunderstorms—hot July weather cooled with occasional rain showers. Distant thunders grumble as they eat breakfast but blue skies prevail and when the time comes they pile their clean clothes into the dry bag for Bailey to bring over in the jon boat. She’ll ferry the rest of what they need for the party, then float with them from the mainland dock in a few minutes.
Ben sets out with the inner tube flotilla and as Bailey waves them off she sees the mermaid streamers across the river where Retta and Mariel and the granddads make ready for the cookout.
“Be there soon,” she says.
Ten minutes into the float trip a thunderhead forms to the west and the rain begins before Ben and the kids can cross the river, only a light shower but Ben herds them splashing to the mainland dock. They’ll let the rain pass and wait for Bailey—good call since the wind kicks up before everyone’s in the back door. They wrap themselves in warm towels and stand on the porch watching the sky blacken. The dogs pace and Retta decides everybody gets an early cupcake.
It’s one of those biblical thunderstorms—teeth rattling thunder, white capped waves, relentless wind and fierce bolts of frayed lightning. On the island, tent flaps snap and cedar branches swirl. Bailey chases cushions and secures the jon boat. A stray bag sails off the dock table and bits of potato chips scatter into the swelling river. Bathing suits and tee shirts blow helter skelter on the clothes line. The electric air sparks, charges, trips, and Bailey is the only one at ease.
Rain pelts in big hard drops, half an inch in the rain gauge before the front passes twenty minutes later and hot blue skies open again on the river. Summer. Cumulus clouds billow white and fat and the marsh grass is especially vibrant in fresh light. Green glistens from palmetto fronds and pine branches and the effect is cinematic. The birds concur that the storm has passed and a pod of dolphins blows and dips in the calmed water.
Bailey gathers the last few supplies and rings out the soggy clothes. On the bluff side Cecil and George talk about whether or not they’ll steam the shrimp in the same pot with the crabs, and Retta slices peaches with the swim moms. The Joes are coming across the yard with a wheel barrow full of ice and Ben is folding Curly into one of the bright striped hammocks they brought home from Belize. Most of the city kids are hanging out on the dock arguing over who’ll take the lines from Bailey to secure the boat when she gets there.
She’s more than halfway across the river when the slightest zephyr gusts a serpentine pattern of wind on the surface of the water. The sky shadows and a sudden cannonade of nearby thunder explodes with the simultaneous fireblaze that jolts her from the jon boat and into the dreamy deep. All of it in the twinkling of an unforeseen instant.
On the mainland they refuse what their eyes tell them, refuse to let go the path she takes toward the dock, refuse the boat that continues without her. Every pulse of energy from every being on that bluff surges in resistance. This cannot be.
All of them wailing Bailey, Bailey, Bailey . . . and in the chorus of voices there is her own calling Momma, Momma . . . and the voice of another daughter calling, crying . . . a daughter who will one day learn to fly as
Sheets of prismatic fallout return to
Moonswept worlds
Known and Unknown
Upward, inward
Outward, under
Like diamonds dancing
In a slow wake of
Elegant weaving
Astral knots untied
Each a transgression
Each transcendent
Birthright
Streaming
Streamlined
Elements of starlit grace
Dreamscapes of reconciled motion
Time circular and sacred once more
Closer to the mainland
Farther from the shore
She curves in the arc of a seeker.
The diligent river folds into itself as stars settle into seas, into skies,
and the moon takes her place in both realms.
Follow that path.
Out of that path she rises.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book has been a long time coming. Were it not for the diligent pestering of Pat Conroy, it might yet be a work in progress. He is my treasured brother-in-Dickey, and I offer him my heartfelt thanks. To the remarkable Jonathan Haupt, my masterful editor, I also offer thanks and praise. He is my comrade-in-letters, and his mark is on this book.
My mother gave me words and my granddaddy gave me magic, and James Dickey more than anyone showed me how to make something of those gifts. I have also been fortunate to learn from other generous mentors—Bernie Dunlap chief among them. Also Allen Wier, William Price Fox, John Mac-Nicholas, and Ben Greer. Then there are Steve Lynn, Keen Butterworth, Kevin Lewis, and the incomparable Don Greiner. Charles Wadsworth and Byrne Miller.
For the enduring allegiance of my family I am grateful, not only for Mom—Patricia Ann Lowther Malphrus—and Andy, but also for Sarah, and for Dad—J.N. (Jody) Malphrus—and Joey and Deborah and Andrew and Sara and Brann and Willy B. For Cheryle and all my Lowther family. For my Malphrus family and my Fishkind family. For my special sisters Holly and Heather (Caitlin and Emma) and Susan and Sheila and Martha and Karen.
I am grateful too for the encouragement of friends near and far—Andrew Geyer, always. Diane and Anthony. Matthew. Lil and George. Rainbow Sarah. Babbie and Nancy and Patsy and Jacob—all my Bluffton people, Beaufort too. Schatzie and Ed and all my Montana people. My very own Ridgland people, so many who matter so much. There are others—you know who you are.
To everyone at Story River Books and the USC Press I extend my thanks. For those who generously offered insight and advice during the revision process, especially Valerie Sayers and Ann Hite, I am sincerely appreciative. For unwavering and continued advocacy, I express gratitude to my colleagues at USCB.
Above all I am grateful to my loving husband Andy who has accorded me steadfast support and the unselfish gift of solitude to get my work done. To him I offer my abiding devotion.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ELLEN MALPHRUS lives and writes in her native Carolina Lowcountry and the mountains of Montana. Her fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared in Southern Literary Journal, Review of Contemporary Fiction, William and Mary Review, Georgia Poetry Review, Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, and the anthology Essence of Beaufort and the Lowcountry. She was a student of James Dickey and teaches at the University of South Carolina Beaufort.
Ellen Malphrus, Untying the Moon
