Tragedy in the Short Lives of Moths(William Cline) Tragedy in the Short Lives of Moths

Part One:
Finding Angela


“Do you believe in karma?” My best friend sat with me on empty plastic milk crates in my living room. He asked me that question. When I did not answer, he asked again. “Do you believe in karma?”

Between us there was a bucked with ice and three bottles of beer. We were sitting on milk crates because my second wife had left me, promising to become my second ex-wife. My employer of the last fifteen years had fired me.

“Karma, man. You did something awful in a past life, and now you are paying for it.” He drained his second beer. I still held my first, the condensation now running onto my hand.

“There has been enough awful in this life,” I sighed. “We don’t need to dig into any past ones.”

“Well, there you go,” he said, taking his third beer from what remained of a six-pack. “What is the worst thing you’ve ever done?”

The worst thing I had ever done. I knew the answer before he twisted the cap off the beer.
It haunted me, in a dream.

In my dream I follow Angela into the restroom. It is a cinderblock building near the corner of the park, by the playground equipment. It is square, with a wall separating the men’s side from the women’s. It is late afternoon, but still warm. The baseball people are gone. Angela comes to the park by herself; she lives just up the road. I don’t know which house in the neighborhood, even though I have been to it a number of times. I have been at the park most of the day, watching the games, hanging out with friends, but mostly staying away from my house.

She is in the far right stall. I see her shoes. I walk up to the stall door and knock.

“What do you want?” she says. “Leave me alone.” She is not surprised. There is no indignation at having been followed into a bathroom where you expect privacy.

“I saw you flip-the-bird to Mr. Bennett,” I say to her. Mr. Bennett is the principal of the school we attend.

“Leave me alone,” Angela says softly; a plea rather than a demand.

“You know if I went and told on you, you’d be in a lot of trouble.”

“No, please.” Her voice becomes panicky.

“All you have do is let me see you undressed and I won’t tell.”

Angela Dewey breaks into steady sobs, and I hear her sit down hard on the toilet seat. “No,” she says.

“I’ll go into the principal’s office and tell.”
Grief and misery, despair; it all come through that stall door in her choked sobs and pleas for me to go away.

But, I do not go away. Instead I say: “Angela, it won’t be that bad.”

It won’t be that bad.
The worst thing I ever did.
It won’t be that bad.

When the dream came to haunt me every night; when I woke in a sweat every night; that was when I threw some clothes into an overnight bag and left; left my empty apartment, left my empty life.
I drove across the top of Oregon, hidden in the in the dark of night. There was a storm in front of me that I watched crawl slowly over the land: a long, dark, line of clouds on the horizon spitting lightening in heartbeats of blue. It was a thing of fascinating beauty. It was frightening. Something inside me trembled with each release of energy.

The storm was gone when I arrived in Meritsville, Oregon. Dawn was close, the horizon taking on a bruised shade of purple and scarlet. I drove through the still sleeping town, following the ways I knew as a child, until I came to the park. Around the park darkness still clung to the houses, beneath the trees, in the alleys of my old neighborhood. Even with the darkness as a shroud, I could tell that things had changed. The neighborhood across the road from the park was made up of old, small, dilapidated houses; some with horse-wire fences and worn, bare earth yards; others were hidden behind overgrown shrubs. Weeds entangle everything, including cracked and weathered plastic toys. The houses looked abandon; windows covered with plywood covered with graffiti.

Yes, so much had changed. In my days here this had been a vibrant place with well-kept yards, clean streets and sidewalks.

Angela had lived not far from here. I had lived on a street across the park from her.

I stopped next to the park, along a damaged curb and tried to take it all in.

It won’t be so bad.

Exhaustion swept me into sleep, and I dreamed. Of course I dreamed about her, about Angela and the worst thing I ever did.

As I dreamed, as she choked and sobbed in anguish, there was a knocking sound.

It was cold, and I woke startled, disoriented. I had fallen asleep in the cab of my little truck. It smelled of stale burgers and fries. There was knocking again as I looked around. The windows were opaque with moisture – me sleeping and breathing inside that small space.

“You okay, buddy?” A young face at my passenger window, looking in at me through the condensation. I waved, tried to nod my head. The young face moved back from the window. Cold air rushed in as I opened my door. I stepped out, stretched as I stood up, then looked around. The young man who had rapped on my window stood near the center of the road. He couldn’t have been more than twelve, thirteen tops. His arms were pulled in close, hands in pockets. He was wearing worn jeans and dirty tennis shoes that had once been white. He had on a jeans jacket with a hooded sweater beneath. His face was pale, tired and hungry. All of this was capped by hair that knew no one direction to lie. It was dark and shiny from having been unwashed for some time. When he ran his fingers through it, front to back, it left furrows that slowly collapsed.

“Thought you might be passed out or dead.”

“Just sleeping,” I said. “Drove all night.”

He laughed. “I hope it wasn’t just to get here,” he said.

“Actually it was. I used to live here.”

“Huh, well, the cops usually come through here about this time, chase everyone out.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Donny even checks the houses, sometimes.”

“Donny?”

“Officer Donnbreck.” the young man said. He walked to the side of the road and stared out into the park. I turned and followed his gaze. “He comes in and chases the bums out. When it gets real cold they come up from the rail yard and sleep in some of the abandon houses over there.” He nodded to the row of boarded up houses across the street. “With the wind the way it is it’s the only way for them to keep warm.”

“What’s the harm in letting them sleep out of the weather?”

The young man smile. “The Mayor doesn’t want them around. He has plans for this little slice of heaven. The young man said this and spread his arms out, gesturing at the park.

The park we were staring into was nothing like the park of my memory. This place had taken on the personality of the neighborhood. Beneath strewn fir boughs, which, no doubt, had been torn from the trees by the passage of last night’s storm, the grass of the park was sparse, yellow, and in places, gone. The playground equipment looked broken, ignored, and surrounded by hard clay. The baseball diamond once had a backstop that dominated the landscape, and a three-foot fence that ran the length of the outfield from the first base line to the third base line. The outfield fence was gone, and the backstop was a patchwork of plywood and sagging chain link, pine branches and leaved caught in its deteriorating web.

Near the playground equipment, alone beneath a shaggy oak tree, sat the cinderblock restrooms.

“What does he want to build?”

The young man turned away from the park, stuck his hands in his pockets. “A shopping mall.” He shook his head. “Can you believe it? He wants to tear down this whole neighborhood. I think he would burn it down if he thought he could get away with it.”

“Sounds like quite a guy,” I said.

“My name is David, by the way.” He extended his hand, and I shook it. “So, what’s your story? You drove all night from where?”

“Vancouver,” I said. “The one in Washington, up the river near Portland. My name is Owen. Owen Whitehall.”

“So, why’d you come here, Owen Whitehall?”

“This place has some significance to me. I’m looking for someone; someone I was…close to back then.”

He smiled, shook his head. “I can’t believe you drove all that way just to find someone.”

“I did something I am not proud of, and I wanted to come here and…maybe…”

“Something bad?”

“That’s the only reason I would come back to this place,” I said. “I hated it here. Everyone here hated me.”

“Well, we have one thing in common then. Everyone hates me, too.” He looked at me with a smirk. “I am pretty sure even God hates me. At least that’s what some people say.”

“Why would they think God hates you?”

“I was born.”

“Well, David, I have to say that it usually takes more than being born to earn the hatred of God.”

“You know something about God?”

“Only what I learned in being forced to go to Sunday school.”

“Well, Owen Whitehall from Vancouver – the one in Washington, who used to live here where everyone hated him, and decided to come back because he did something bad he is not proud of,” David paused, either to take a breath or for effect, “I’m an abomination; an abomination in the eyes of the Lord, according to…”

“Some people,” I finished.

“One person, really. And you want to know the best part?”

“Sure.”

“She’s my step-mother.”

I was silent, staring at him, unable to think of anything to say.

“Well, enough about me,” he said. “I got only one question for you. Who are you looking for?”

“A woman; she was just a kid back then, I think maybe thirteen, about your age. She may not even live here anymore. Her name is Angela Dewey.”

David smiled. “Angela Dewey. Well, I think I can help you.”

“Really? You know her?”

“I know of her. She still lives here.”

“Do you know how I can get in contact with her?”

“Yes, but I think we should get something to eat first.”

The Corner Cafe was in one of the original buildings that went up in the years just after the Korean War. Through the windows I could see five tables and a few booths. Just beyond them, lining the front of a short counter, were several bar stools. Beyond the counter was the kitchen where there was some movement.

“This used to be the bus station,” David said as we walked up to the entrance. “At least that is what gram told me.”

“It still was when I lived here,” I said.
We walked in and sat down at a booth by the front window. David stared out the window, a smile on his face. A waitress walked up and put her hand on David’s shoulder. “Who’s your friend?” She asked.

“Hey, gram.” David said and smiled sideways at me. “Found him sleeping in his car down by the park. He looked so pathetic; I thought I’d bring him up for some breakfast. Says he used to live here and he’s looking up old friends.”

“Really?”

I was stunned.

“Say’s he knows you, gram; was looking for you.”

It began to dawn on me what was happening when I looked at the waitress’s nametag: ANGELA.

David grinned broadly and tipped his hand toward his grandmother. “Angela Dewey,” he said.

Angela sat down next to David; I could see resemblance: the smile, the set of their eyes above the straight, hard line of their nose.

“Do I know you?” Angela asked, an easy smile on her face. She was slender, with darker hair than I remember, now shot through with gray. Her arms were slender, but not bone thin like in my memory. I began to wonder if my memory was wrong somehow.

“It was a long time ago,” I said. I had thought about this moment since I made the decision to come back to this place and find Angela. I never found the right words to say when thinking about this moment, knowing that my blurting out what I did would probably not work. “I did something that I am not proud of.”

“To me?”

I could only stare at her, looking for something in her eyes that would tell me how to say next what I needed to say. “Yes.”

She leaned back in the booth and glanced over at David. Another waitress brought water and menus, and a chocolate milkshake for David. “Thanks, Grace,” Angela said. “Well, it must not have been too bad. How long ago was it?”

“Thirty-seven years ago,” David said, setting the milkshake aside. “You and him did something bad in the girls bathroom at the park.”

“David, please. I was not asking you”

“Okay, uhm, no…” I stuttered.

“That would have made me thirteen,” Angela said, her eyes shining. “I would have remembered that.” She emphasized ‘that.’

“Okay, Owen, what exactly did you do to my grandma in the bathroom at the park thirty-seven years ago?” David was trying to look stern, in a protective way toward his grandmother.

“David. Please.”

“Down at the park, in the girls bathroom, I tried to get you to take off your clothes.” I looked down at the table, at the menu.

David began to laugh. “That’s it?”

“David.” Angela smiled at me. “I am sorry, but I don’t remember. Has this been bothering you?”

“Yes.”

“And you are trying to make amends?”

David laughed at this. “Make amends? Christ sake, gram, he tried to talk you out of your clothes. Ooh, how bad can you get?”

I started to get up. “Okay, well…” I stammered.

“Okay David, that is enough. You go upstairs, now. I’ll send something up in a minute.”

Outside the wind was beginning to blow bits of trash around the parked cars in the street. The overcast of the sky was darkening.

“I think we’re going to get another show like we had last night.” Angela reached across and touched my arm. “I’m really sorry about all this,” she said, looking out at the windy street. “You came up here with good in your heart, with the best of intentions, and you ran into my grandson and his attitude.”

It was a struggle for me to look at this woman, happy and beautiful, and unable to recall an incident that seemed horrible to me, made all the more horrible because I caused it to happen.
So horrible that it ruined my life with its karma.

Doubt began to gnaw at me. How could there be so much bad karma involved in an incident only I remembered? Is this really what has caused my life to be such a disaster?

“I have bad dreams about what I did.”

“And I am in them?”

I could only nod.

“This is really a struggle for you, isn’t it?”

“Since my second wife left, I have had a lot of time thinking about my life.” I leaned back, looked at Angela’s face. “What do you call them? Light bulb moments, when suddenly the lights come on. When she left, that’s what I had: a light bulb moment. It all just suddenly hit me what a train wreck my life has been.”

“Why?” Angela asked, her voice quiet, her eyes filled with concern.

“That is what I came to find out,” I said. “I thought it all led back to you.”

“Because of the dreams?”

I nodded. “The dreams.”

She smiled and everything seemed to soften. My nagging internal struggle went on, but it was mollified by her kind voice, bright smile and shining eyes. We talked for a while, and I ordered something to eat, though I cannot remember what. All the while the wind increased until the windows of the café shook, and the door rattled.

“Are you going to stay in town for a while, maybe look up some other friends of yours?”

I glanced outside. It was obvious that the storm was bearing down on Meritsville, and would be there in full strength soon. “Before we moved here,” I said, “I lived in four different towns, went to five different schools. All that before the seventh grade.”

“Which was here,” Angela said.

I nodded. “Here. And in all those places, and the three I lived in after we left here, I do not have any friends I left behind. I have friends back in Vancouver, but not many. Most of the people I used to work with won’t talk to me.”

She reached across the table and put her hand on mine. “I am so sorry.”

“Not your fault.”

It seemed a natural place to separate, though I found myself wanting to stay; but for what. There was nothing form me in Meritsville, except possibly the ending of my bad dreams. Angela gave me directions to an inexpensive, but nice, hotel. “Just outside of town,” she said. “Right off the interstate.”

It was a dry storm, a lot of wind, thunder and lightening, but no rain. Not uncommon on the edge of the High Oregon Desert.

It was nearly overhead when I opened the door to my inexpensive, but nice, hotel room. The door was in a narrow alcove with one light illuminating the doors of two other units. Around the light were two small white moths, fluttering and bouncing off the lamp glass.

Sounds and sights will sometimes evoke memories. The moths, the lights, they reminded me of a time before my parents fought and divorced, when I spent summers with my grandparents, who took me camping and fishing; let me enjoy being a child.

My grandfather’s back porch was enclosed in screen. The night before we were to leave to go camping, I was sitting quietly on this back porch. Outside it was dark night. My grandfather had walked out the screen door just moments before and told me to sit and wait. The old man was kindly and understanding, but when it came to obedience there was no compromise. There was a board hanging in the kitchen for times when reminders were necessary.

Outside I heard grandfather moving things in his shed; boxes being scooted across the dirt floor, crates and bags being re-stacked, occasionally grandfather’s gravelly voice cursing. Then the shed door banged shut and there were footsteps coming up the dirt path.

Grandfather smelled like cigars and motor oil. The upturned cuffs of his coveralls spilled dirt whenever he sat down in his recliner, and grandmother pursed her lips and shook her head. He was thin, strong, and his hair was almost gone. What was left was gray and wispy. Wire rimmed eyeglasses made red dots to either side of his narrow nose.

He stomped into the porch with a cigar burning down to nothing in his mouth. He was carrying an old lantern by its looped metal handle and set the thing down beside me on the bench. The glass chimney was smoky yellowed and the metal clanked and squeaked.

“Is that it?” I asked. Grandfather nodded and winked.

“How does it work?”

Grandfather pulled a wooden match out of the bib pocket of his overalls, lifted the glass chimney up with one hand and lit the match with his thumbnail. “See that piece of cloth there?” he said. Inside the lantern, jutting up out of the base of the lantern was a curl of cloth that was blackened at the end. “The other end is sitting in the kerosene, soaking it up. Now, all I got to do is light it and it’ll burn all by itself.”

“What’s kerosene?” I asked, not looking away from the cloth.

“It’s what they use to make kerosene lamps work.”

I leaned over the lantern and tried to see down inside the base through he narrow slot where the cloth came through. “What does it look like?”

“Nothing much,” grandfather replied.

When the match touched the cloth it began to burn with a lazy yellow flame, giving off smelly black smoke. Grandfather put the glass chimney back down then twisted a knob on the other side of the base and the black smoke disappeared. The flame had brightened to a brilliant white. Grandfather cast a shadow against the opposite wall.

“Don’t touch the glass,” grandfather warned as he reached over and turned off the porch light. “That’s fire in there and it’s hot.”

Lit only by the lantern, the back porch changed. The white of the walls had blemishes I had never noticed before: whorls in the wood beneath the paint; knots in the plywood. He even saw one of those football shapes that sometimes come in sheets of plywood that make grandfather shake his head and spit. Grandfather’s shadow now dominated the back wall, moving only slightly as the flame inside the lantern moved. The smoke from his cigar even cast a shadow above the shadow of his head.

“Is this what its going look like when we go camping?”

“Nope, ‘cause there won’t be a house to go in to when it gets late.”

“Do you keep the lantern on all night?”

“Nope.”

“Then it’ll be really dark?”

“Really dark. You’ll be able look up at the sky and see more stars than you can see here. And it’ll smell better.”

“Why?”

“Because out in the woods the trees keep the air clean, makes it smell good.”

“Why will we see more stars?”

“Because we won’t be around city lights. Stars shine brighter when there’s no city lights.”

“Why?”

There was a bang against one of the porch screens. I turned away from the lamp and saw a fluttering shape outside the screen. It banged again.

“Moth,” grandfather said. “It wants at the lantern?”

“Why?”

“Moths are attracted to the light.”

“But won’t they get burned ‘cause the glass is so hot?”

“Yep, I guess they do.”

“Then why do they do it?”

“I don’t know. That’s just what moths do.” He looked at me and winked. “Moths are not too smart.”

Grandmother came through the kitchen door. “Don’t listen to him, Owen,” she said. “Moths are lost little souls who think that they will find what they are looking for inside that light.” She put a hand on my shoulder, said. “Now, scoot inside. It’s almost time for Lawrence Welk.”

As I turned and walked into the kitchen I heard grandfather say: “And all they find is hot glass against their nose,” grandfather said.

“Don’t listen to him,” grandmother whispered as we walked through the kitchen.

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