Moby

A precocious seven-year-old boy finds himself as the reluctant protector of his unwitting family when his bickering parents offer a ride to a grizzled, possibly murderous hitchhiker.

Bad things happen when my parents fight.  

When I was a baby, I fell off the counter and wound up with a golf ball-sized indentation on the starboard side of my skull, while they were immersed in some petty disagreement about laundry detergent.

Another time, my sister Starbuck wandered off during some immemorable dispute over eating locations and wound up scaling the local communications tower.  To this day, she insists she simply wasn’t ready to come down yet, but I saw the way she was wailing when we found her. She most assuredly was stuck.

After half an hour of my father unsuccessfully attempting to coax her down, with everything from promises of chocolate milkshakes to threats of corporal punishment, the fire department was called.  

The image of Starbuck being lowered down the tower in some bizarre, harness-type apparatus made the front page of the local news the next day.  Needless to say, she was not tickled.

I could tell stories like this till the cows come home, as it were, but one in particular stands out in my mind.  This, of course, would be Moby.

On the day I met him, I was a chubby seven-year-old with a redundancy of freckles and a dent in my skull.  I recall staring listlessly out the window of my family’s gelopy and trying to count the telephone poles as they whizzed past, always getting distracted by my own ceaseless internal monologue before I could reach the double digits.

My sister--who was then a pretty, albeit slightly malnourished girl who hadn’t had a proper meal since April--sat parallel to me, glossy black fingernails turning each page of her novel as though it was something precious, even though it was only one of her cheap paperbacks about teenagers who fall in love and then die at the end.

I envied her.  Reading in the car was a skill I was too prone to motion sickness to acquire, but it would have made the time pass a lot faster.

The only person I possibly envied more was my brother Ishmael, who’d managed to surpass the excursion entirely with an impressive reenactment of the stomach flu.

I was miffed at him for that.  If he’d come along, there would have been no room for Moby, and he could have told me funny stories to pass the time.  

But no, he just had to stay home, didn’t he?  Holed up in his room with one of his many girlfriends (or boyfriends.  He never seemed to have much of a preference in that department) smoking cannabis and doing God Knows What while the rest of us were left to suffer.  Damn you, Ishmael.

As it was, it was just me and Starbuck, distracting ourselves as best we could and trying desperately to ignore the grizzled hitchhiker seated between us.

My father wasn’t going to pick him up, and I’m sure my mother didn’t want to, either.  But she knew my father disapproved of the practice, and of course, she just had to contradict him.  It was a duet they shared, a dance only they knew: he’d step forward, she’d step back. He’d say one thing, she’d say another.  It was sort of romantic, in its own way.

“What’s your name?”  I recall shyly asking, as he climbed past my dangling legs into the family Volkswagen.  

He had a graying mane of matted hair framing his face like a demented lion, his cloudy blue eyes pink-rimmed and vulturish.  To my recollection, I hoped he’d be less intimidating if engaged in conversation.

“...What’s yours?”  he grunted at me, without blinking.

“Ahab.  And that’s my sister, Starbuck,” I added, though he had not asked.

None of us were spared the consequences of my father’s Melville obsession, though I do believe Starbuck got the worst of it.  Not that I particularly enjoy being named after a peg-legged, whale-obsessed lunatic, mind you, nor does Ishmael enjoy the constant barrage of mispronunciations (though he does take indulgent pleasure in being able to say, “Call me Ishmael” whenever introducing himself), but at least we were spared the added indignity of sharing a name with a beverage company.

The man seemed to think it over.  “...Moby,” he decided.

It was clearly an alias, and I’m sure he thought he was extremely clever for coming up with it.  He wasn’t. One doesn’t grow up with a name like Ahab without learning to associate every variation of that word with the titular white whale.  

But the man was An Adult, and I’d been taught that questioning An Adult (or authority in general, for that matter) was rude.  So I just nodded politely and went back to my window watching, trying to ignore the feeling of his eyes boring ceaselessly into the back of my skull.

My parents, on the other hand, could be remarkably detached from reality when they wanted to be, and seemed to forget about Moby’s presence entirely.

They had already gone back to bickering about something inconsequential--I believe it was some disparaging remark about my Great Aunt Suzy, who would be at the reading of the will we were now attending, and exactly how much he was not looking forward to seeing her.  My mother didn’t like Great Aunt Suzy any more than he did, but nevertheless bit back with a jab at his cousin Brandon, who was still in the state penitentiary for sexual misconduct at the old folks home where he’d worked.

He was arguably worse.  Arguably.  You’ve never met my Great Aunt Suzy.

At some point, Starbuck leaned past Moby’s girth, made her thumb and index finger into the shape of a gun, and mimed shooting herself in the head.

I giggled dutifully, but I pitied her.  She hated it when my parents fought. If Ishmael had been there, he would have said or done something to distract us both, to make us forget how much our parents relished contradicting one another.  But as it was, it was just me and her and Moby.

In a spur of the moment decision, I decided it was my duty to cheer her up.  So, I leaned forward, with the intention of making funny faces or miming some off color action, or something else I’m now sure she would have considered aggressively unamusing.  

It was in that moment that I saw the gun.

It protruded from the inner pocket of Moby’s ratty trench coat, nestled against his thigh, its sleek black shape in stark contrast with his otherwise grubby appearance.

I looked up at him again, and felt the color drain from my face.  Moby was still staring directly at me. His eyes were glassy and bloodshot, utterly disjointed from reality, but I could tell he knew what I saw.    

Nausea rose in my stomach, my heart a cold lump in my chest.  My parents, fully immersed in their quarrel, were more oblivious to the situation than ever.  

“...All I’m saying, Lizzie, is there just isn’t any damn magic in our relationship anymore,” my father was saying, for the hundredth time in their past five years of marriage.  At least the setting was somewhat less humiliating than my school Christmas pageant. “When’s the last time you really put in an effort to make things special?”

“No magic!?  NO MAGIC!?” my mother repeated incredulously.  “If there ain’t enough magic for you, mister, you only got yourself to blame.  Let me tell you, I am plenty magical.”

“Oh, are you now.”

“You can bet your lily-white a*s I am!  I am a goddamn UNICORN.”

My father snorted.

“Mommy?”  I interjected timidly.

“Yeah, what is it, sweets,” my mother sighed, lighting up another cigarette.

“I…”  I glanced up at Moby, still leering down at me like a vulture awaiting its meal.  He put a grubby, talon-like hand on the gun in silent warning. I knew I couldn’t tell the truth.  “I think I need to throw up.”

It wasn’t exactly a lie.  

“You see, Lizzie?”  my father admonished.  “I told you it ain’t right, smokin’ around a boy his age.  All that dirty air and nicotine.”

“Oh, shut your mouth, Herm,” she huffed, before addressing me.  “There’s a rest stop a couple miles ahead, baby, so you’re just gonna have to hang on till then.  Can you do that for Mama?”

I swallowed, looking into Moby’s pale, predatory eyes, and I knew I couldn’t.  None of us could. But his hand was still on the gun, so we didn’t have much choice in the matter.

“I think so,” I lied.

“If you barf all over my shoes again, I’m gonna be pissed,” Starbuck muttered, not looking up from her book.  

My mother said something innocuous about my being her good little boy and whatnot, and then went back to her cigarette and her bickering.

It aggravated me, how oblivious everyone was to the situation.

Feeling defeated, I thumped my forehead dejectedly against the glass of my window and watched resentfully as the world whizzed past, all sweet and golden in the afternoon sun, the trees just starting to turn umber, the sky a crisp, cerulean blue.  How beautiful it was.

It made me sad, to think I might never see it again.  

That I might never see Ishmael again--Ishmael, charismatic and beautiful and completely infuriating, simultaneously the most mature and immature person in my life at the time--to tell him how utterly pissed off I was that he’d abandon me to this.  To see if he ever stopped diluting a gifted and sizable brain with cannabis and alcohol and a constant barrage of meaningless sex just so he could cope with the world.

To see if Starbuck ever stopped waiting for my parents’ permission to live her life.  To see if she stopped starving herself just in the hope that they would notice or care, and waiting for their approval to feel beautiful.  To see if she’d ever read something other than books about teenagers making bad decisions and dying.

To see what they might wind up doing with their lives.  What I might wind up doing with mine.

And then I saw it.  The miracle. The thing that would save our lives.

My eyes widened, and I knew I would have to act quickly.

“MOMMY, MOMMY,”  I screamed, jabbing the glass wildly with a stubby index finger.  “IT’S A DEER!”

The animal in question was a young buck, probably a yearling, shish kebabed by its haunch on a spiked metal fence.

My mother gasped, and I knew we were golden.  Deer were some of her favorite animals, and I knew she would have wanted to help it even if my father didn’t, which he, of course, did not.

“Herm, pull over!”  

“Oh, come on, Lizzie,” my father groaned.  “First the hitchhiker, and now this?  Lord knows what kind of germs that thing must have.”       

“HERM, if you don’t pull this car over RIGHT NOW, I swear to JESUS I will make your life ten times more miserable than it already is.”

“Please, Daddy?”  chimed in Starbuck, another animal lover and my unwitting ally.  “It’s hurt. Can’t we help it?”

My father rolled his eyes.  “Fine. But only ‘cause you asked me,” he added haughtily.  “As your mother knows, I do not respond to threats.”

“HA!”  my mother scoffed.  

I felt a wave of relief as my father pulled over, which, in hindsight, was premature.  There’s little doubt in my mind that Moby could have killed us. Luckily, I think he was still too lethargic from whatever cocktail of drugs he was on to make his move.

My brood piled out of the gelopy like a glorified clown car, and belatedly, I joined them.  Under any other circumstances, I too would have rushed to rescue Bambi from his predicament, but for the time being I had my own problems to contend with.  

I watched peripherally as my family struggled along without my assistance, vaguely aware of my father shouting instructions to “grab his legs,” while my mother very calmly responded by screaming at him to “shut your goddamn face, Herm.”  Only I seemed to recall Moby was here at all.

I watched as he emerged sluggishly from the back seat of the car, movements slow but purposeful.  He stalked towards me like a predatory animal, glassy eyes fixed on my own. I still take pride in the fact that I didn’t look away.

We were in a fairly isolated area, not another human being in sight save for the occasional passing vehicle.  Dull panic thudded in my chest like a distant wardrum as I realized he could still easily kill us all.

My worst fears were confirmed as those grubby fingers fondled somewhat ludely at the bulge of in his coat where I knew his gun would be, still snugly hidden and waiting to be used.

I swallowed wetly, feeling ill.  The only thing that stopped me from opening my mouth and screaming like a banshee was a cocktail of stupidity and sheer terror that could somewhat self-aggrandizingly be referred to as stoicism.  Though personally, I sincerely doubt Seneca the Younger felt anywhere this close to projectile vomiting when Nero ordered his suicide.

As it was, I stood there, still and wide-eyed as a deer, as I stared into the void and it stared back at me.  What a strange feeling it is, to know you’re about to die.

That’s when the second miracle of the day made its appearance.

“You folks need some help over here?”  

The source of the voice was a young man, lean and strong and dressed all in combat fatigues.  To my immense relief, he had a gun holstered at his side. Trailing him was a young lady with pigtails in her hair, who, from their similar facial features and light blond hair, I deduced to be his sister.

In my standoff with Moby, I hadn’t even heard them pull up.  

My mother, still narrowly avoiding the flailing hooves of the deer, made some sarcastic remark in answer to the infantryman’s query, and my father scolded her.  I was vaguely aware of him apologizing to the newcomer and accepting his offer, still too preoccupied with my foe to pick up on the details.

Observing the exchange, Moby appeared almost disgruntled.  Even then, I could see the gears turning in his drug-addled brain:  two middle aged adults and two children were something he could handle.  But with the addition of two able-bodied adults, one of whom was armed and trained in combat techniques...Moby wasn’t sane, but he clearly wasn’t stupid, either.  He knew that was a fight he wasn’t going to win.

Those detached blue eyes fixed me with a final glare, full of something I can only describe as pure loathing.  He turned slowly, and trudged dejectedly away into the pines. I never saw him again, for which I remain eternally grateful.

I was eventually jogged from my stupor by the sound of cheering.  Bambi had been successfully de-skewered, and was bounding off into the forest looking quite majestic.  

It was really a very beautiful moment, and I remain more than a little resentful that Moby distracted me from it.

Afterwards, my father shook the infantryman’s hand, and the two made friendly conversation.  At some point, names were exchanged, but I didn’t think to remember what they were.

In my mind, the infantryman will always simply be the Infantryman, and the young woman, his sister.  Anonymous, guardian angels who saved us from Moby’s murderous wrath.

Eventually, we were forced to bid farewell as my mother got tired, and squawked at us to get in the car.  I watched from the back seat as the infantryman and his sister got back into their convertible, and drove away in the direction opposite to ours.  I never saw them again.

Ten years later, I don’t regret meeting Moby.  Nor do I truly regret any of the somewhat less bearable aspects of our childhood.  I wouldn’t wish them on anyone else, mind you, and I certainly wouldn’t ever want to relive them.  But years of introspection have made me realize the impact they had on us. Perhaps more than anything else, they shaped who we are.

Had my parents not been so constantly immersed in conflict, for example, Ishmael never would have discovered his talent for calming distressed children, and never would have been motivated to pursue a career as a child psychiatrist.  

I’m pleased to say he’s sober now, and putting himself through graduate school.  My mother still claims he’s working as a footwear salesman to make ends meet, though she occasionally slips up and says “furniture.”  Perhaps I should tell her I already know he’s a stripper, but I have yet to think of a diplomatic way to do so.

Had Starbuck not been prompted to escape into her books, she never would have moved North to open up her bookshop and write novels--a surprisingly small number of which have been about teenagers falling in love and then dying.  The last one she wrote was for middle graders, about kittens, of all things. By far not the subject I would have expected from her, but one I still consider far preferable.

I’m also pleased to report that she’s rediscovered the importance of a well-balanced diet:  she didn’t leave a single bite last time I had lunch with her, and she even ordered dessert afterward.

As for me, I’m seventeen years old, and in my sophomore year of college.  My path in life remains to be discovered. However, my greatest interest so far appears to be forensic psychology, and I would be lying if I said this wasn’t spurred by my encounter with Moby.

Don’t mistake me.  I’m not Bruce Wayne, and I don’t consider the event some kind of traumatic catalyst propelling me towards my destiny.  I highly doubt anyone else in my family would remember, or even be aware of, this particularly close brush with death. It bore no lasting significance on anyone but me.  

But though I didn’t realize it at the time, it occurs to me now that what I saw in Moby’s eyes was something very close to pure evil.  And I stared it in the face when I was seven years old. Try as I might, I’ll never be able to forget that.

Of course, assuming he’s still alive at all, Moby would be a reasonably old man by this point, and in no condition to go around murdering the good samaritans who happen to give him a ride.  But it’s occurred to me that there are others out there, others like him, who exist to do harm. Reasonably, someone has to countermand that. I suppose it might as well be me.

So who knows?  Perhaps someday I’ll capture my own white whale.  

Oh.  And as for my parents, I saw them last when I visited for Thanksgiving dinner.  They fought the whole time, of course. Perhaps they’re happiest that way.

“Herm, pull over,” said my mother, a mere ten miles from our destination.  “There’s another hitchhiker!”

Oh, s**t.

Reviews

[barleygirl]

You might be new to this website & this is a long story to post here at first . . . especially since your writing could use many suggestions & corrections. It’s easier to start out editing a shorter piece, giving one or two helpful ideas at a time. I don’t like to spend a lot of time offering help to someone I don’t know & then I find out they don’t really want detailed help after all.

For this reason, I’ll tell you only a few of my observations. Your storytelling is good & your writing is too, so I’m only addressing things that need improvement. I felt you described so many scattered details about everything that was happening on this road trip, the reader did not get a fulsome sense of who this hitchhiker was & how scary he was & how he was putting a damper on their situation. I like your fun-filled, uninhibited storytelling, & I love when a writer uses lots of details, but I just forgot (at times) that the story is about a scary hitchhiker inside the car who feels threatening. This part didn’t come across as strongly as it could have, with more constant reminders of how creepy this guy is on a detailed level. Like -- describe his yukky breath or how he’s sweating on the others, etc. Make the creepiness palpable, impacting all the senses. Let us really FEEL this guy. The way this is written, he almost disappears at times.

The other main thing I noticed about your writing is the way you use quite a few tangled up long complex sentences. Many of your sentences start with a bunch of tacked-on phrases, so the actual verb of the sentence comes toward the end, & this means the action of the sentence is buried under a bunch of prepositional phrases. This makes the reading feel heavy & slow. For a story like this, you want it to be more dynamic with active verbs used more often & prepositional phrases used less often. You want to use short dynamic bursts of action in very short sentences, to break up the long complex sentences. This is the one thing missing from your sentence structure that could pep up your writing & make it more compelling with action that draws the reader along quickly. Good luck developing your writing abilities (((HUGS))) Fondly, Margie

[Brooksie Fontaine]

Thank you for the feedback! Though I've written three novels, I'm new to short fiction, and I'm finding it to be an entirely different beast. I just started graduate school for creative writing, so I'm hoping to use that as an opportunity to develop my short fiction abilities.