Touching the Moon

Follow your inner moonlight, Allen Ginsberg writes, Don't hide the madness.

On one of those summer Saturday nights when the moon was so bright, so huge, and hanging so low you think you could reach out and touch it, we sat on the steps in the village square and listened to the tide as it washed against the rocks.   Someone had brought a tiny transistor radio and Kitty Wells was singing Dust on the Bible  while someone else was following along on a guitar.  We passed around a pack of Export A's and a half full bottle of Canadian Mist - a vile blended whiskey with the capacity to burn your throat raw, one sip was enough to rock you on your heels and getting caught with it would've meant the direst of punishments - but it was well past closing time in the square.  The general store was shuttered and dark except for the lights in the third floor living quarters and even the barber shop's brisk Saturday night business was done for the night.  Anyone not at the show - yet one more Martin and Lewis comedy, we sighed - or not getting ready for the dance was home and out of sight.  Just past ten, we ditched the empty whiskey bottle and the crumpled up cigarette pack and began to drift lazily toward the dance hall.  Only the Sullivan twins, who to no one's surprise had been drinking steadily since noon, lagged behind.

On the way, we picked up Gene and Buttons, the old retriever had a spring in his step still and trailed happily after us.  When we passed the Howard place, both defiant sisters - their daddy would've come after them with a shotgun if he discovered them sneaking out - came slinking out of the shadows and doing their best to be invisible, joined up with us.  Last but not least, we came to the Blackford house and someone let out a long, low whistle.  We heard Blackie call a good night to his folks and out he came, dressed to the nines from the Spiegel catalogue and ready to dance his size 13's off.  There wasn't a girl on the entire island who would turn down the chance for a spin around the floor with him - he was our own unlikely Fred Astaire - and every girl in his arms became an even more unlikely Ginger Rogers.

With the moon lighting our way, we made our way down the dirt road until the dance hall came in sight.  The clouds, backlit and edged with silver, moved aimlessly across the sky.  We were so young and so mostly innocent - not a care in the world - I don't think we knew there was magic and a little madness in the night. We paid our quarters at the ticket booth and slipped through the doors into the strobe lights and the music.

Marty Robbins was crooning A White Sport Coat and a Pink Carnation when the Sullivan twins came crashing through the door and onto the dance floor.  They were bruised and bloody and locked in a tangled version of a bearhug-combination-chokehold, each grunting and attempting to beat the other senseless.  Blackie stepped in almost immediately, efficiently grabbing each by the hair, pulling them apart and swinging them sideways clean off the floor.  This produced two identical wails of protest followed by two colorful streams of obscenity when he delivered a well aimed kick with those size 13's but he was persistent.  He cracked their skulls together - once, twice, three times in all - until they crumpled like flour sacks and slid to the floor in a useless heap.  Calmly, he took each twin by a handful of shirt collar and dragged them through the door and down the steps, flinging them into the dirt with very little effort.  It was only a flurry of madness, no where near enough to ruin the evening and Marty Robbins was still singing when it was over.

Midnight came and we danced the last dance then reluctantly began the walk home.  The moon was so pale and so near, we imagined reaching out and running our fingers over its surface.  Nowadays when I see such a moon, I wonder if maybe there isn't just a little madness and Marty Robbins in all our moonlit nights.  If there's not, maybe there should be.