The Man in the Moon

The mooring of the USS Sequester was quiet at two AM.

Harold stood at the edge of the dock, looking down into the dark water.

“You know what’s down there, don’t you Harold?”

Harold sighed. He didn’t need to look over his shoulder to see her. It sounded like Miranda.

“I do.”

“We’re all down there, Harold. If you want to be with us so badly, why don’t you join us?”

This one sounded like Laura. She’d been a beautiful twenty-one year old with bleached blond hair, and a smile that could light up even the darkest room. “Maybe,” Harold replied. “Maybe some day.”

“Why not now?” This was Sara. Sara had been a petite redheaded woman with a fiery personality. Her outgoing demeanor had caught Harold off-guard at first, but she seemed eager to see the USS Sequester up close.

I can take you down there.he’d promised.

“But it’s never there when we get there, is it Harold?” Miranda again.

Harold shook his head. “No. Nobody is ever there. Nobody except you.”

“And there never will be,” Laura piped up. “We put our best foot forward. We just act like ourselves. Isn’t that good enough for you, Harold?”

“And what am I supposed to do?” Harold felt heat growing in his cheeks. “I try to keep up, but I don’t know what you want. I feel like whenever I meet one of you, I get put on the spot, like you’re expecting me to be someone I’m not. I don’t want to disappoint you.”

“So this is the alternative?” He knew this particular voice; it was Jana. She was a natural blond that had moved to Bangor from San Diego. She’d been in Portsmouth for a week, training for a financial advising job, when she met Harold. “Just leave us in the water, waiting for you to come down and finish what you started?”

Harold shook his head. “Go away, go away, go away!”

He looked over his shoulder. Sometimes the girls let him see them, in their glowing ethereal forms, let him see what he’d created as a stark reminder of what he’d left at the USS Sequester’s mooring.

Tonight, however, they did not let him see them. He stared down at the cold black water where the USS Sequester would be moored only weeks from now, and luxuriated in the company.



* * *



“I’m from Boston—how about you?”

Harold smiled, or at least tried to emulate the smile he was receiving from the girl. She was a sweet young woman, twenty or so, with natural brown hair pulled up into a tight bun at the back of her skull.

“Hampton,” He replied. His words sounded shaky.

“That seems like a nice place,” the girl remarked, pulling out her cell phone. “I like Hampton beach.”

Harold knew this gesture. A phone meant she was losing interest. He imagined all the girly things she was saying to her friends: I’m at Gerry’s Bar, where are you guys? or There’s a weirdo talking to me, HELP!!!

He felt like the man in the moon, always circling the world. He wailed mournfully, but his cries for help went unheeded. He felt lost and alone.

“I’ve been to Boston once,” Harold said. “To see the USS Constitution.”

The girl’s eyes lit up. “I love the USS Constitution. I love seeing old ships! My dad owns a wharf, so I’ve been around boats my whole life.”

“How would you like to see the USS Sequester?”

By this point, the girl’s eyes were like spotlights. “Really?”

“Really. I can take you down there.”



* * *



Her name was Kelsea. Harold learned that on the way to the dock.

He didn’t learn much else. Kelsea did a lot of talking. He tried to keep up, at first, but eventually all he could do was nod his head and say yup every now and then.

“Shit,” he grumbled, as though he didn’t know the USS Sequester was out in the Atlantic that night. “It must have set sail this afternoon.”

Kelsea deflated. “Oh well…”

Harold licked his lips. She pulled out that stupid phone again. Harold had lost his novelty; it was time to see what important people had to say. The water looked cold, but hungry.

“Maybe you can drive me back to the bar,” Kelsea suggested, her eyes still locked on the phone. “I can have some friends pick me up.”

Harold could barely hear her. His brick lay in the middle of a coil of rope at the edge of the dock, where it always lay. He picked it up, feeling its consoling weight, and crept surreptitiously behind Kelsea.

“I appreciate you bringing me out here, though. It’s a nice—”

Harold beat her in the back of the head with the brick. Kelsea went tumbling to the dock, moaning. He fell to his knees and beat her again. She put her hands up to defend herself. Harold brushed them aside and beat her again.

He did this until she stopped moving. Then, he rolled Kelsea’s body into the water, and watched her sink. Its hunger was satiated—for the time being.



* * *



“Harold.”

Two nights had passed, and already Kelsea had appeared.

“What?”

“How could you do this to me? I was so nice to you.”

Harold shook his head. “I’m sorry. You were going to leave.”

“I was alive, Harold,” she said with a scowl that caused her ethereal features to wobble. “That’s what girls do. You need to find the one that won’t leave, instead of hanging around the ones that did.”

Harold looked over his shoulder. Miranda, Laura, Jana and Kelsea were here, along with a few others.

“I know,” he said. “But I can’t do it alone. You’re my friends. I need you.”

He glanced at the dark water, where the USS Sequester would be moored in a few days. Then he looked back to his friends, but they were gone.