MOON PIE DAYS

Homer, Louisiana 1968

by Todd Moore

Billy Paul sprayed every doorknob, light switch and toothbrush in the house with Lysol disinfectant, wore black, clip-on bow ties covered in plastic cling wrap and used a tape measure to ensure each fork, spoon, knife and glass was placed in its proper position at the table before he would eat. Fortunately, most of these activities though sometimes annoying to others were harmless as opposed to his sleepwalking, which caused Billy Paul to walk into people’s homes at night in a trance when their doors were unlocked as many were in those days and steal their Moon Pies and Lysol spray. One’s fried chicken or cheddar cheese might go missing, but he never stole money or jewelry or anything else that might have been considered valuable. In exchange for looting their refrigerator he would leave a person’s kitchen cleaner than it had been in years. It got to where people would unlock their doors on purpose, even open them wide and put out Moon Pies for him on the counter in hopes that Billy Paul would do their ironing or folding, while he was sleepwalking. It is for this reason that he was able to continue his nighttime visitations for so long. The doctor warned it was dangerous to interrupt a nocturnal trespasser when he was sleepwalking, so people heeded his warning. After Billy Paul started nailing Moon Pies to the walls and spraying them with Lysol, his parents began padlocking themselves in their bedroom.

Occasionally, while in a state of waking sleep, Billy Paul would rearrange the contents of his mother’s kitchen cabinets alphabetically. One cabinet, for instance might be devoted exclusively to items beginning with a “C” —corkscrews, cotton swabs, caviar, chicken broth, Comet, cat litter, Christmas tree skirts and Karo syrup. He was better at organizing than spelling. A can of tomatoes if not found under “C” for “Can of” might be shelved under “A” for “A can of” or possibly “T” for “Tomatoes” or even, “D,” “S,” or “W,” if they were diced, stewed or whole. This daily assault on his parents’ sanity compelled them to consider booking a double room for themselves at the nearest state mental institution.

Though generally good company, Billy Paul seemed to operate on a different level of thinking and had a tendency to ramble on about idiotic topics like parallel universes, higher dimensions and Fibonacci numbers til I wanted to scream.

“His name is Liberace, Billy Paul! Liberace! Don’t you watch the Ed Sullivan Show?”

Of all Billy Paul’s physical features, the most prominent was his thick, black hair, which he would slick backwards and forwards to create sculptures using Brylcreem and a long, black comb. The end result was often impressive, even artful and never failed to entertain. These creations would start out as bangs that hung way down in front and were combed up into a point on top or parted down the center in preparation for a simple swoop or something unexpected like devil’s horns or flat curls that looked like swirls of buttercream icing covering his head. A hair sculpture might remain in place for an hour, but usually just five or ten minutes, if that, before being re-shaped into another. When he carried on too long about Liberace numbers and such I’d say, “Hey, Billy Paul, I think your hair needs combing. Show me how you comb your hair.” In a few seconds, he’d be so caught up in his hair styling, you couldn’t get a word out of him.

It was the 4^th of July 1968. Billy Paul and I were anxious to see the fireworks that would come later after sundown. They were the best part of the day’s celebration. Second best was the parade of slow-moving, white, blue and American flag red Impala convertibles displaying Miss Claiborne Parish 1968 and lesser title holders as they made their way around the town square. Posed on the back of each pageant car was a sash-wearing, young lady with a bouffant, beehive or flipped-up hairdo decked out in shimmering sequins, long, white gloves and a priceless, bejeweled crown permanently on loan from the Queen of England. These were kept in a vault deep within the Homer National Bank and used only once a year for this auspicious occasion. That’s what my brother had said. Sometimes a beauty pageant contestant would lurch this way or that when the driver gunned the accelerator or tapped the brake unexpectedly. The previous year “Miss Catfish” fell backwards and slid off the rear of the Impala hitting her head on the pavement with great force before being backed over accidentally by the driver twice. Brother told me Miss Catfish’s skirt had hiked up beyond her ears until a great lack of underwear and a good deal of Aunt Vagima could be seen by all in attendance. My brother had shown me a picture of one of those in a magazine before. I wasn’t terribly impressed. Sadly, Miss Catfish, as a result of her injuries and possible embarrassment caused by the scandalous event slipped into a coma. Momma said Brother was going to slip into a coma, if he didn’t stop telling lies about people, especially those who didn’t exist. Thankfully my brother was careful not to mention the lack of underwear or Aunt Vagima part audibly. Brother confessed that he had “misspoken.” “Tis true, there is no such person as ‘Miss Catfish.’ I was confusing her with ‘Miss Cornbread and Turnip Greens,’ who fell into not just one coma, but two, a double coma known in the medical community as a coma deluxe.”

I was looking forward to seeing the dazzling beauty queens and if fate allowed, witnessing one of them slip into a coma deluxe or at the very least a coma non-deluxe. The worst part of the parade was the segment featuring the dreaded Shriner clowns in red fezzes at the end of the day before the fireworks. Their sole purpose was to terrorize children with grotesque, exaggerated faces until they ran screaming in open-mouthed horror into the arms of their mothers. It’s no wonder I had recurring nightmares of being chased and cannibalized by a troupe of demonic, ill-mannered clowns. They were beyond frightening. They were sinister. Even my grandmother, known to be one of the scariest people in North Louisiana and East Texas combined was less terrifying than a Shriner clown. To be fair she did give me new underwear and socks every Christmas from Selber Brothers in Shreveport.

At some point a fez-wearing potentate would be announcing the Honorary Shriner for a Day 1968. This person, who was randomly selected in a raffle earlier would be presented at the parade outfitted in Shriner’s clown attire riding on the back of a tiny car. Until then, his identity would remain a secret. The newly anointed Honorary Shriner for a Day was also the recipient of an entire year’s worth of Texaco gasoline and other Texaco products. This is the detail that ensured every Homerite’s participation in the raffle.

All of the Miss Claiborne Parish slow-moving Impalas and Honorary Shriner for a Day festivities were still a couple of hours away. In the meantime, Billy Paul and I knocked about town. That day he was carrying his emergency supply suitcase “E.S.S.” which was almost as big as he was and held the necessary items needed in case of nuclear war.

Besides a trove of Moon Pies all I saw in there was a tube of Brylcreem and a can of Lysol disinfectant. I was told this ordinary looking piece of luggage, which smelled like Jean Nate perfume had the ability to communicate with other such suitcases across the globe using the Worldwide Wireless System powered by quartz crystals sewn inside the lining. Billy Paul claimed you could send a message anywhere you wanted and someone could reply. For instance, you might want to communicate with the Great Pyramid in Egypt and inquire, “Do you have Prince Albert in a can? If so, you better let him out.” Or if you wanted to know what was on the menu that day at a specific café in Paris or at the lunch counter at any Woolworth’s worth its salt you could do so almost instantly by typing in a message and getting one back saying they had sliced roast beef, green beans, mashed potatoes and gravy, a house salad, all you could drink sweet tea, coffee and your choice of dessert—lemon merengue pie, pecan pie, chocolate cake a la mode, bread pudding and a Co-Cola float among other delights.

Wherever Billy Paul went, the E.S.S. went, though it sort of dragged him along more then he dragged it. He had procured it from an old lady.

“Which old lady did you get it from?”

“Some old lady that uses Jean Nate. They all look alike to me. She nearly shot me with a gun while I was climbing out the window, put a bullet right through the suitcase. See there.”

At one point we considered climbing the mile-high or so it seemed to us, Homer water tower. There was a walkway that went entirely around the big tank, though neither of us had ever seen anybody on it. Billy Paul thought somebody must have stood up there at some point to paint the word “HOMER” on the front, which made good sense. It was the rest of his supposition that fell short.

“Now, wonder if you painted the ‘H’ and then the ‘O’ and then you got to the ‘M’ and you had to pee. Where would you pee? I don’t think I could keep painting all the way til the ‘R’ was finished, then climb down and pee. Maybe that fellow, painting those letters just peed off into the air in front of God and everybody else, especially, God who was closer to him in the clouds. Or maybe there’s a bathroom behind a hidden door in the ‘E’ for instance. From down here where we are, it would just look like a plain old ‘E,’ but if you were up there, you could see there was a hidden door built into the ‘E.” It could be any letter though. Not just the ‘E’. The ‘H’ or the ‘M’, for instance. Hey, what do you think is in that water tower, anyway?”

“Gee, Billy Paul, I can’t imagine what would be in a tower made for water—coffee? gumbo? Jean Nate?”

Eventually, Billy Paul and I found ourselves on the cement steps out back Daddy’s store where we decided to get a Coke from the machine that stood under a little roof. Sadly, our combined income fell short of the necessary sum required to purchase a single Co-Cola. Most people would have given up the pursuit of this carbonated Holy Grail, but I sallied forth with a plan. We would snag a free-for-nothing Coke from the red, refrigerated cooler inside the store. Though the door on the top of the fixture had a tendency to jam it would slide open just enough to allow my hand to reach in, liberate a Coke or two and haul ass. I had never dared to attempt such a crime before, but we were in dire need. Surely, serial killing would come next.

The indoor Coke cooler was situated near Miss Ida Mae, the cashier, who kept an eye out for young felons in training such as us. Billy Paul was tasked with creating a diversion, knocking over a display of cans or boxes, while I would shove the Cokes down my shorts and walk out the front door like a regular, non-thieving person trying not to squeal because of the frigid conditions in my Fruit of the Looms.

The scheme was a good one until I saw the sign on the back door:

“CLOSED FOR 4^th OF JULY.” I tried to open the door a few times, but it was locked. My heart sunk and Billy Paul panicked. He started standing on one foot and another overcome with an urgency to pee, which was no small issue since he was pee shy. Going behind a tree or a bush or on a brick wall wasn’t an option. He just couldn’t do it. Only a toilet behind a door would work for him. Perhaps a hidden door with a big “P” on it, as in “P Here.”

Confident that Billy Paul would survive this dilemma alone, I sauntered down the street and sat on the curb for a spell and came back to find him bent over pigeon-toed with his hands clasped over his who-ha yelling, “I can’t go! I can’t go! Where’s the Lysol? Where’s the Lysol?”

While I had been perched on the curb I had remembered where a key to the store was hidden.

“Hey, Billy Paul, guess what? There’s a bathroom inside and I know how to get in!”

He winced. “I gotta go! I gotta go! Where’s the Lysol? Where’s the Lysol? It fell out of my Emergency Supply Suitcase.”

“Why do you need the Lysol?”

“I can’t go until I spray Lysol on my who-ha three times.”

“I don’t think that’s good for your who-ha, Billy Paul.”

If anybody else besides Billy Paul had said he had to spray Lysol on his who-ha three times in order to pee I would not have believed him, however, I took Billy Paul at his word and ran around looking for the missing can, but to no avail. There was, I recalled, a can of Lysol in the bathroom inside and more on a shelf to be sold.

I remembered the key to the back door was duct taped to the top of the Coke machine. It was going to take some doing to get up there. Billy Paul didn’t like it very much, but I had to stand on his back and climb up on the machine. I didn’t feel so badly though seeing as how he was already stooped over. I made it to the top and all that was there was a piece of silver duct tape folded up on itself.

“Where’s the key, dammit!” I yelled. “It’s gone!” That’s when Billy Paul fell to the ground curled up moaning, “Lysol! Lysol!”

“We’ll get you some Lysol, Billy Paul. I know for a fact, there’s a can in the bathroom inside.”

In order to distract him from his suffering I called upon my standard method of diversion.

“Hey, Billy Paul, I think your hair needs combing. Show me how you comb your hair.” My powers of persuasion had failed me. Billy Paul writhed around in pain whimpering, til I couldn’t bear it any longer and kicked the door invoking my grandmother’s words, “Goddamnit! Son-of-a-bitch!” until the hardware around the knob fell off and the door opened about an inch.

“Look, Billy Paul, the door is open. The Lysol gods are with us!”

I knew I had done something awfully close to if not well beyond the bounds of wrong breaking into my father’s store, but there was no turning back, so we ventured forth. Billy Paul struggled with the Emergency Supply Suitcase scraping it along the floor until I grabbed the fool thing and toted it myself. Why we needed it I had no idea. The store’s interior was dark as a pocket except for a streak of light coming from the storeroom in the back where the bathroom was located inside. Somebody had forgotten to yank the string that turned off the bulb I assumed. I don’t know why it is that people feel compelled to whisper in the dark, but as they do, so did we, stepping gingerly past products in the shadows displayed on the ends of the aisles. The dark became so dark I could barely see Billy Paul next to me. It seemed I had led us astray in the wrong direction. Something had been moved, a fixture maybe, or not? I was confused. We were getting further away from the light, not closer. The hum of refrigerated units throughout the store grew louder and within the whir of that sound I was certain I heard other unbenevolent sounds, then I saw before us the narrow slice of light that had lit our way before piercing through the black emptiness around us. As we approached the half-open door to the storeroom the surrounding area became increasingly brighter. I breathed easy knowing we had made it and that there were no signs of unbenevolent sounds. Now, the lulling hum of refrigerators was almost comforting. We were ok. All was calm. I took a deep breath.

“There’s the bathroom, Billy Paul, with the Lysol inside. You’re going to make it. The Lysol gods are with us!”

Billy Paul had crumpled up on the floor in resignation and was pulling at his black hair whimpering, “Lysol. Lysol.” A glint of something startled me. I stopped short trying to discern what it was. Standing in the half-light ahead was the silhouette of a person in the doorway to the storeroom and another combing his hair and fussing with his clothing, perhaps. I could only see what I could see and it wasn’t clear. Fearful of what we had come upon, I slowly crouched down next to Billy Paul. At that instant, every overhead fluorescent light in the store jolted on, each with a loud “ZAP!” and buzz followed by others in quick succession, “ZAP! ZAP! ZAP!” A jarring eye-popping burst of flickering green light revealed a ghastly sight. The entire store was filled with a legion of Shriner’s circus clowns wearing fezzes yelling uproariously as Billy Paul and I shrieked in terror holding on to each other shaking and trying to breathe. This scene was a manifestation of my nightmares, except worse. In seconds, I would be cannibalized by a troupe of demonic, ill-mannered clowns.

Out of the storeroom light stepped a single clown without a fez, the one who was being groomed. The other clowns crowded together facing this one and burst into, “For she’s a jolly good fellow,” which they repeated as the jolly good clown was lifted into the air on their shoulders and carried along until the celebrated figure was seated upon a throne made out of boxes of canned goods at the head of a long banquet table heavy laden with food and drink. A fez-wearing potentate stood behind the throne, and crowned the clown with a fez announcing, “With this sacred fez, I declare thee, Vivian Blanchard, Honorary Shriner for a Day 1968!”

If ever there was a time to slip into a coma deluxe, it was right then and there. My grandmother? Neenaw? A Shriner circus clown? I had to look again. Was that really her smeared in white grease paint, sprouting sprigs of orange hair on either side of a white bald-capped head and wearing a red clown nose, while smoking a Marlboro cigarette? Yep, no doubt about it, that was her.

“Congratulations, Vivian! You’ve just won an entire year’s worth of Texaco gasoline and other Texaco products. Many thanks to our generous host, Don Moore, and Moore’s Food Store for the comestibles. And now fellow brethren, Vivian would like to say a word.”

“Friends, Romans, clowns! I thank you from the depths of my heart and gas tank!”

This Barnum and Bailey scene was too surreal for me. I suggested in no uncertain terms to Billy Paul that he was to get behind me and haul ass.

Quickly, we scrambled scooching along, bent over past the aisles of products and displays headed for the back door, but everywhere we turned was a clown. The crowd grew silent as another fez-wearing official gave some officious-sounding clown speech. Billy Paul was dragging the emergency supply suitcase across the floor as loudly as someone might drag a screaming man to the guillotine. All eyes turned towards him.

“Let go of the goddamn suitcase, Billy Paul! Just leave it! They’re all looking at us! Come on!”

I heard my grandmother’s voice. “Hey squirt with the bow tie! Where are you going with that suitcase? I know who you are. You’re that little pissant I caught sneaking in my window stealing my Moon Pies. You little Moon Pie thief! That looks an awful lot like my suitcase too. Come back here with my suitcase! Somebody give me my gun in my purse!”

Billy Paul’s eyebrows went up, “I would take this woman at her word. She shot that hole right there through this suitcase six inches from where my leg was when I came through her window.”

We made our exit post haste out of the back door and ran and ran and ran ‘til we came to the cool green comfort of a large front yard and fell out on our backs in the grass with fast-beating hearts that soon settled into silence. I reached out to the clouds, which had come to offer protection.

“Hey, look at that tall sunflower over there, Billy Paul.”

“Sunflowers exhibit Fibonacci numbers in their seed arrangements, forming interlocking spirals. This natural phenomenon demonstrates the golden ratio.”

“His name is Liberace, Billy Paul, Liberace!” I realized Billy Paul had not gone to the bathroom. “You never went the bathroom! You never peed!”

“I did pee. I peed down my leg when those lights came on and I saw all of those clowns.”

“But how did you do that without spraying Lysol on your who-ha?”

“I don’t know. Somehow the spell was broken and I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want to hear you say, ‘The Lysol gods are with us!’ one more time and if you say it again I’m going to do something really bad to you.”

Billy Paul had never been so abrupt with me. He had finally found his tongue.

“Why did you haul that fool suitcase out here? Are you planning on sending a message to the Woolworths in Paris to find out if they’re serving Co-Cola floats today?”

“I’ve got to return it to your grandmother. It’s hers. I ought not to be crawling in people’s windows at night procuring things.”

“Like Moon Pies?”

“Yes.”

“Billy Paul how come you like Moon Pies so much? How come you’ve got all those Moon Pies in your Emergency Supply Suitcase?”

Billy Paul rolled over away from me with his face in the grass crying.

“What’s wrong, Billy Paul?”

“Your grandmother’s right. I’m a Moon Pie thief. I hate Moon Pies. I steal them so I can sell them to Mr. Keener, who owns the country store going out of town. He sells fishing worms to people on their way to the lake and a lot of times they buy Moon Pies to eat while they’re sitting out there hungry in a boat. I sell them to him at a cheaper price than the Moon Pie man in the truck sells them to him. They last, you don’t have to put them in the refrigerator, they never go bad, so they’re easy to keep and sell. Mr. Keener makes his money and I make mine.”

“I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

“I do it so I can eat.”

“What do you mean so you can eat?”

“We don’t have much money for food. I use what I get from the Moon Pies to buy food for my family. They’re seven of us counting my mother and father. Lot of mouths to feed. Sometimes, I go into people’s houses and take everything in their refrigerator. If there’s nothing in the refrigerator, I’ll eat a Moon Pie if I have one in the suitcase to hold me over though it cuts into my profits.I just pretend to sleepwalk. I nailed a bunch of Moon Pies to the wall in the living room and sprayed them with Lysol on purpose to make my parents think I sleepwalk. It’s an excuse so they’ll leave me alone, while I go out at night and bring back my loot. If you sleepwalk you can get away with going into people’s homes. I do little chores for them, while they’re asleep cause I feel bad about my thievery. I figure though, nobody’s going to put a kid in jail who irons somebody else’s clothes for free.”

“I don’t really take anything else. Last year at Christmas I went into a couple of homes and took some ornaments off their trees here and there just so I could give one to each person in my family as a present. I left Moon Pies for each ornament I took. The ornaments weren’t much of a gift, but I wrapped them real nice. Wrapping is half the gift, if you do it in a creative way. Problem is I have to wrap each one ten times til it feels perfect to me. Rich people have shiny things they don’t even need. Poor people need shiny things so they can forget they’re poor.”

“How do you know which house has got the Moon Pies ?”

From time to time, I hang out at the Piggly Wiggly and your father’s grocery store studying who in town buys a whole box of Moon Pies or more then I hit their house at night. No one at the grocery stores really minds me coming in and staying a while because they think I’m a little tetched in the head and harmless, which I encourage by acting the part. The cashiers, managers and owners of the stores look forward to my visits, because I sweep the floors and sometimes bag a few groceries for free while keeping an eye on the Moon Pie buying situation.

It’s always a gamble, but out of every ten homes I visit, I rarely come up empty handed. Once I know my customer, I’ll order a dozen or two Moon Pies from the Moon Pie company in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and have them delivered C.O.D (Cash On Delivery). Some are returned and others not, but it’s always worth a try. I keep the Moon Pies in the E.S.S. so my family doesn’t know what I’m up to. They think I really work for your daddy or the Piggly Wiggly doing chores and that they pay me in food and that’s how I come by the food I bring home.

I felt badly being so snitty with Billy Paul about Liberace numbers and hidden doors in the Homer water tower and dragging that suitcase. After that I sometimes went with him to people’s homes to assist in his sleepwalking chores and tote back the loot to his house. Every so often I’d snag a few cans of beans or vegetables or fresh fruit from my daddy’s store and one time a sizable roast for his family to have with mashed potatoes and gravy like they served for lunch at Woolworth’s. His momma would make bread pudding from bread that had accidentally ended up under my shirt and fell out on the floor behind her back. Billy Paul took Moon Pies, but he never ate them cause they brought money and mainly he had grown so sick of the taste of them he’d throw up just to smell one. He said he’d rather go hungry than eat something that tasted like a dirty penny in an empty pocket.

“Billy Paul, how come your people are so poor?”

“From everybody in my family being so crazy and drunk and doing bad things. They operate on a low frequency. People say I’m not right in the head ‘cause I do odd things, but I’m more right than most. I just vibrate on a higher frequency. We attract people and situations that vibrate on the same frequency as ourselves. One day, I’m going to vibrate right out of that house and Homer, Louisiana, and leave these Moon Pie days behind me.”

The week after our 4^th of July adventures Billy Paul brought my grandmother’s suitcase back to her. I came along. He picked up a nautilus shell on a shelf and began to talk about its relationship to Fibonacci numbers.

My grandmother was stunned. “How do you like that, an 8-year-old young’un knowing about Fibonacci numbers.”

“You know about Fibonacci numbers, ma’am?

“Of course, and the golden ratio, as well. Two quantities are in the golden ratio if their ratio is the same as the ratio of their sum to the larger of the two quantities.”

I’d say Vivian Blanchard and Billy Paul vibrated on the same high frequency.

That was the first of many visits Billy Paul paid my grandmother. I don’t know what they talked about, because I wasn’t there. I didn’t mind, though cause I hated going. She scared me to death for one and also sucked up all the oxygen in the room talking or if not talking then smoking. I vibrated on a different frequency, neither low nor high, the sissy frequency, quoting lines from Auntie Mame and creating Carmen Miranda Extravaganza displays for ambrosia salad in my father’s grocery store with pineapples and mayonnaise and watermelons. Other times I would just look at male underwear models in the Sears catalog. I guess it was no surprise to people when I moved to New York City years later.

Billy Paul received his Ph.D. in Quantum Computing at MIT and held a high-paying position as a quantum somebody-or-another. He must have sold a lot of Moon Pies to pay for a hifalutin education like that or had an extremely generous patron. I heard it was some anonymous clown, who knew about Fibonacci numbers and golden ratios and vibrated on the same high frequency while smoking Marlboro cigarettes. What do I care? I got new underwear and socks every Christmas from Selber Brothers in Shreveport.