brightest sight

Mooney Greenwall was born to be a girl on fire. She came dancing out of the womb to a family of ten siblings, two parents, and was strapped in the most handed down pair of tap shoes her family could afford, and they afforded very little. Her parents had nine older children who amounted to hunters of the backwoods and bums, all living out of the same trailer in the same wooded lot of Minnesota. Her father was a moonshiner, dark in the skin, and her mother was a moonshiner’s bride. They often fought, the parents and the siblings, but when little Mooney was in the room nobody said a word. They fought for money, for food, but the tiny Mooney Greenwall always had a full belly and clothes on her back. The family saw a tree from a sapling, ten tries until success. That was the Greenwalls.

David Greenwall, the patriarch Greenwall, his shine was the best in town. Everybody came to him for his drinks, his mixers and brews. Every Greenwall drank from his stills, and every Greenwall knew another who was willing to spend a cent for a sip. A distillery sat under tents and pallet walls, behind the trailer in which the family homesteaded, but only Mr. Greenwall was allowed to touch the vats because he was the master of the stills. Nobody told Mooney of what these magical devices of homebrew were, though she did ask.

“It’s an alien device, darlin’”, Mrs. Greenwall once lied to Mooney, “Your pops stole it from a spaceship and keeps it nice and pretty for coffee-makin’.”

Little Mooney was a passionate girl. She fed squirrels nuts, played pattycake with nuns, and boy did that girl dance. By her father’s leather clip, she took to the stage like a moss to a stump. She fell for the stage but never fell but once. A scrape on her knee hardly kept her down, for she was little Mooney Greenwall, talk of the town.

“My starshine”, her mother called Mooney, “My brightness sight.”

Mooney misheard that last call, for she was called on stage at a moment’s notice. She was dancing for a trophy, tapping for an article page and a place in the show. She got her trophy, her article page and a place in the show. The interviewing judges had never seen an orphan Annie with such a lovely disposition for tap, for swinging her little hips and legs like they were strong spaghetti noodles. She was the first Annie to have skin darker than the cast, umber like a fine wood that could simply not stop dancing. The year was nineteen-twenty-four, and she was going on nine, but her headstrong attitude gave a twelve to a ten. She wanted the lead and got it on the first try.

Little Orphan Mooney is what her family began to call her, as she prepared for the first show in three weeks’ notice. She danced and jived, jumped and played the swinger’s music all through the night, preparing her lines and her knees for the big day, where she would be an orphan for the entire town. Her family had only one gramophone for music and three records that skipped, but no matter what the time of day it was, that music was playing loud.

Little miss Mooney had a hundred moves. Her sister taught her to shuffle, her mom how to swing her hips. Her dad showed her the man’s dance, how to hold hands and sway. She thought she knew it all, what dance a storefront would sell. She thought children came pouring out of distilleries, and that leaves were green because the trees thought they were pretty. Summer saw the leaves dying their hair green, fall saw a fashion change to orange and red and yellow. Mooney had it all figured out, save for one thing.

“What’s this?”, she asked her older brother.

She referred to, of course, the bunny carcass a hawk dropped in their yard. It laid in its rot and decayed in grass.

“It’s a bunny. It dead”, the older Greenwall said.

“But why?”, Mooney asked.

“Because something wanted it that way.”

“Did the bunny want it?”

“Probably not.”

“Do we all die?”, asked Mooney, “Like the bunny?”

“Yup.”

“Why?”

Her brother had no answer, besides to “Ask pa. He’ll know.”

So, she did. He was working his still, moving bottles and working wrenches when Mooney asked her father why people die, and her dad had an answer.

“Because God is angry with us.”

“Why is he angry?”

“Because we’re ugly”, said Mr. Greenwall, tightening bolts on his still’s foundation, “Because we’re not perfect enough. Poor people.”

“Oh…”, Mooney said, disappointed, “How do I not die? Can I live forever? Aren’t I perfect yet?”

“That’s a question ‘er three for your ma.”

Mooney left her dad to ask her mother how to live forever, how to be perfect enough to impress God.

Her mom answered sweetly, “By dancin’ the way you dance, sweetheart. Never stop singin’ your tune to dance with. That’s how.”

And Mooney took that as a serious challenge. She never stopped dancing for God’s grace, never gave up her role as little orphan Annie. There was too much at stake. She practiced and pruned herself to the best dancing she ever did, tapping along to little books that her mother bought to teach her well. She read how to shuffle, learned how to flap and ball change. She learned all she could with a belt tight enough to hold her misfit pants, and perhaps God was impressed because in that time she grew three inches taller.

One night, several days before the debut performance, her father had something to share that also impressed God dearly, so he thought. A single jug of his special recipe shine, bottled by a cork and four crosses drawn on the side. It was a happy brew of something special that he was most impressed by.

“This is my magnum opium, Mooney, the best swill I’ve ever made. It’s four times stilled and holds a German chemical a spy once sold me for a pocket of beans, during the Great War your great-pappy fought inside of. When you’re on that stage, remember this drink and how well good work will bring you in this life. You’ve been workin’ your tail off and girl it will pay dividends, like this drink will bring our family a new fortune.”

“Okay pa, I will.”

And she remembered. The day of her first performance, something was eating at her fully. She kept thinking about death, about impressing God with her dance. She never let up all the night before, tossing and turning for an answer and a prayer that could bring them. That’s when she got a brilliant idea.

She arrived at her community theatre with a backpack full of things; her costume, a red dress hand-stitched, her tap shoes worn to a nub, and a mug. She went backstage and got herself well dressed, powdered on the nose by her teacher wearing lipstick made for an adult. The stagehands were setting behind the curtains while men and women of many colors came into the theatre, segregated by booths and rows to watch their community children. There was a buzz from all eleven of the other Greenwalls, and just about everyone who knew them. They were ready, and Mooney was not quite there. She was in the bathroom.

She took her backpack and undid the tie, placed her mug on the sink, so she could take out the special German drink along with it. She could smell the perfection, the ambition of aroma, and it took two hands of her little body to pop the cork wide. She’d seen her family do this a hundred times but she didn’t imagine the bottle could be so heavy. She began pouring herself a drink, and successfully did, but near the end she dropped the jug with a slip of her right wrist. She began to panic when a knock happened at the colored door.

“Places everyone!”, the stagehand called, “Mooney, are you in there?”

There was ceramic everywhere and the juice drained through the tile. It was time, and there was none left to hesitate. She drank from the mug until nothing was left but an unpleasant taste in her mouth, like cold medicine mixed with cherries and Jesus. She wanted to be like Jesus, perfect enough for God, grown like her sisters and brothers and father and mother. She went out to find the stage, got confused about which direction she was meant to go even though she’d rehearsed a dozen times. Mooney had a squeeze in her stomach as she waited for her opening line to appear, something made from jitters and bitters. Other children began singing on stage, when eventually it was her turn to join the fray.

Mooney took her first steps out, tapping forward the way she knew how, and oh boy did she tap away towards center stage. Her red dress flourished in the spotlight, and her lips wore a great big smile even Annie couldn’t dream of. That smile flapped like her feet as she took the center from every other little girl and boy the town had offered, and her arms moved right along with her. The piano in the background sung louder than the other children, who made an awful racket Mooney never did enjoy, because the singing was louder than her feet. But she danced on anyways, and sang her part along to the tune, and when her sweat began to break something in her stomach turned sideways.

Little Mooney nearly vomited on stage, but she swallowed the swill. Her sweat turned bright in the spotlight and soon she did not need the stage to glow. Her hair turned blue and luminescent to everyone’s fascinated fright, and she danced on, not knowing what had occurred, as she stole the show until everyone thought she was brilliant and radioactive. The show ended as intended and she was on fire, not literally necessarily but sure her hair continued to glow like the sun-rising sea. She was a little dynamo. Her family praised her, and her father was awfully scared, and that is how Mooney Greenwall became more or less; the Brightness Sight.