The Movie Moon: (And Other Stories)

By Jim Accardi

The Movie Moon is a collection of award-winning stories set in the American South during the last half of the 20th Century. The scenarios range from the tobacco fields of Middle Tennessee, to the grim interior of an Alabama prison, to the Louisiana bayous. The characters are heroes and villains and ordinary people caught in extraordinary circumstances. In the end, the one recurring character is the South, herselfthat blessed plot, that complex, diverse, and justifiably proud region.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 23, 2003
• ISBN: 9781465319173

Jim Accardi

Jim Accardi is the author of three novels and many profiles, essays, and articles. He lives in Huntsville, Alabama with his wife, Marian, and children, Burns and Hollon. The Movie Moon is his first collection of short stories.

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Copyright © 2003 by Jim Accardi.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any

form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording,

or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing

from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the

product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to

any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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Contents

FLYING

ODDITIES

HAULING OUT

WATCHING

BAMA RAE, FROM THE PARKING LOT

BEATITUDE

THE MOVIE MOON

STAR BRIGHT

THE MURDER OF MULE MAN

AN EVENING WITH THE PORN QUEEN

In loving memory of Mom, Dad, Grandma Burns, Henrietta and James Enoch (my other Mom and Dad); and to Mary Ellen Galloway and Coach Tom Owen.

—I wouldn’t be me if not for you.

As always, to Marian: My muse, my anchor, my tourniquet, my best friend.

Thanks to all the people whose inspiration, encouragement, sponsorship, support, and/or contributions helped make these stories possible, including, but not limited to: John Shaver, Angie Lane, Harry Renfroe, Shirley Lee, Judge Charles (Sonny) Rodenhauser, Bruno Procopio, Gary Rigney, David Enoch, Ellen Alexander, and Ralph Summerlin.

FLYING

Falling, falling. Jadie Lyn imagines that she is dropping through space, descending in a controlled but steady glide. Floating among the clouds over cobalt Gulf waters, flirting with the fugitive horizon.

Her father’s van, a ‘70’s model Ford Econoline, descends from the towering bridge across the Intracoastal Waterway, rumbles toward Perdido Key. With her eyes closed, Jadie can easily imagine she’s flying. She’s had her eyes closed since just before the bad curve in the road. When she opens them, as her imaginary airplane makes its final approach, the familiar landscape will be gone: the murky waterway, the scrub pines and mangroves, the parched loam and restricted palette of the Florida Panhandle.

The Key, resplendently arrayed in silver, gold, many shades of blue and green, suddenly appears. From this elevated bridge ramp, she can see the coast stretch all the way to the horizon, its glorious silver curve interrupted only by the startling geometry of the fully developed shoreline. She is able to see the Gulf beyond the rolling dunes, the pastel estates of Ono Island, the resort hotels and bleached ziggurats of the condominium towers, clouds beginning to build over Mobile Bay. From this vantage, she can see the shadowy meridian that has held back the frightening other-world.

Jacob Woodrich drives in silence. He has always been a quiet man—the steely suppression of emotion is his birthright. Encumbered now by the paralyzing yoke of grief, Jacob speaks only when absolutely necessary. He finds little need to talk to Jadie most of the time. She has mastered the mechanics of her job, and the rest of their lives is fairly routine. And, of course, Jadie knows that he loves her, so there’s no need to constantly revisit that prickly emotional terrain.

Jacob eases the van into the service parking area at The Gulf

Wind Tower. This will be their first large pool and spa of the day. Jacob’s van is old, its blue paint faded almost to grey. He has a front license plate bearing the number 6, an homage to his favorite NASCAR driver. An American flag decal adorns the crumpled rear bumper. Jadie opens the rear doors, gathers her things, and follows her father into the lobby. The sun, fully risen by now, paints the eastern side of the building with light. Jadie dislikes having to carry her equipment through the building common areas: children, teenagers, and the elderly tend to stare. The smirking stares of her fellow teens bother her most of all. She’s not sure whether they stare at her, or at them, but she suspects that she is the primary object of their collective curiosity. Of course, at this hour, most of the teenagers will still be lying in their identically furnished units, languid and unmotivated. There is something about the beach, the penetrating sun and careless breeze, that drains the scant reserve of adolescent ambition.

She’s just had her thirteenth birthday. She’d hoped that her father might’ve let her take just that one morning off. She would have slept in, maybe just until nine or so. She might even have run over to Pensacola with a few of her friends from school. As it was, she’d gone to work, just like every other day. Her father had claimed that he couldn’t spare her, not even for a single morning. Since her mother had died, there were only the two of them.

Annie Vaughn Woodrich used to help on the morning run. She basically handled all the chores for which Jadie now had responsibility. She was killed two years earlier when a delivery truck slammed into her car on the bad curve just a few miles from their home. Jadie has never understood why it had to happen. Her mother had only been going to the store, just making a quick run down the road for a box of rice. It had been a dark and rainy afternoon, she remembered that much. One minute she was there, keys dangling carelessly from her hand, the next, she was gone forever. Jadie still doesn’t understand how just going down the road for a box of rice should be something that ends your life. She believes her mom’s spirit may still lurk near the site of the accident. She believes in an afterlife, in heaven and hell, but one of her friends told her that sometimes spirits which aren’t ready to leave hang around the scenes of their deaths. That’s one of the reasons Jadie feels anchored to the western Panhandle.

Sometimes she cannot remember her mother’s face without looking at the framed picture on her father’s dresser. It’s a studio portrait of Annie Vaughn taken a few months before she married Jacob. Even then, Jadie has difficulty putting this face, creamy of complexion and absent all the lines, with the mother who had walked out the door that rainy afternoon. Jacob, of course, seldom speaks of her, never talks about the accident. Jadie is occasionally tempted to ask him for details. But she knows her questions will be dismissed with a frown and a quiet admonition. Talking about it won’t bring her back, he’d say. So she buries her questions with her other curiosities and concerns.

She sits now on the edge of the pool and scoops water into her test kit. She is wearing cut-off blue jeans and an oversized tee-shirt. A baseball cap is pulled down low on her forehead. Dark glasses protect her eyes from the sun, but they serve other purposes, as well. She is tall for her age, and very slender. Her medium-length brown hair has been gathered into a ponytail and pulled through the hole in the back of the cap. Her father stands across from her and tries to net two crabs at the bottom of the pool. Jadie has never understood why a crab would want to leave the beach for the harshness of a chlorinated pool. Even a bad home is still home.

Beyond the pool, the sea oats sway in the steady breeze. The Gulf Wind’s beach attendant scurries to distribute umbrellas and chair cushions in preparation for the swarm of sun worshipers. This is peak tourist season and a beautiful day on top of that. The beaches will be teeming in a few hours.

Jadie can see fishing trawlers heading out from Perdido Pass into the Gulf. They seem to be one long file, all heading in the same direction: obliquely, toward the Southwest. The air is heavy, thick with humidity and the reek of rotting fish. An airplane towing a huge banner drones down the beach from west to east. The banner reads: Eat At Marcie’s Buffet. The pilot is making the first of his twenty daily passes.

Jadie places a chlorine test tablet into her test kit, stares at the indicator as it settles into the acceptable range. She shields her eyes against the now brilliant sun and watches the airplane disappear down the coast. She imagines herself at the controls, cruising smoothly just above the breaking waves. If she could fly, she’d like to have the job towing the banner up and down this beach. That way she could feel the exhilaration and have her freedom without ever having to land in an alien environment.

Two teenaged girls enter the pool apron. They are identically attired in oversized Mickey Mouse cover-ups, luminescent blue visors, black-and-pink sandals. They move in a strange synchronization, with a carefully practiced insouciance. Jadie Lyn watches them picking over the available deck loungers. She studies them covertly, her curious eyes well hidden by the jet-black lenses. They are too close in age and too dissimilar in appearance to be sisters, she decides; they must be best friends. She watches them select two lounge chairs. They peel off their cover-ups and coat each other with lotion. Each has a gold chain around her neck and gold hoop earrings. Each is already a deep, bronze color. Jadie wonders how it might feel to just lie around all day, like lizards on a warm rock. Turning bronze and using up suntan lotion.

You still have that spa to tend to, her father says. He is standing at the deep end with the pool vacuum in hand. There is a frown carved into the whiskered oblong of his face.

Yes, sir, she says. She drips the phenol red indicator into the test kit, checks the pH level. She glances up at the two girls. They have positioned their chairs toward the sun.