The Space Between the Stars

The stars had always comforted Simon. As a child, he would carefully slip out of his second story bedroom window and lower himself onto a small, steeply pitched patch of roof jutting out over the kitchen window. The rough texture of the tar paper provided just enough friction so that he could lie back and not slide off the edge of the house. And then he would just stare up and wonder and wish.

To be one of those stars. To know that every time another human being looked into the sky, they would be able to see him. To recognize him. To admire him. For eons to come, he would be a part of the night sky. Sailors would navigate by his light. Lovers would share their first kiss with him shyly looking on. Children, other children like Simon, would make a wish and if it was in his power and they were true of heart, he would make those wishes come true.

To be a star, to be seen, even with all of the billions of others, was preferable to being lost in the space between the stars. The darkness that no one sees. Because the darkness has no shape. It has no definite mass. And because it appears to have no shape or mass, it becomes invisible to the casual observer. It doesn't count. And in life, Simon was already invisible, so he'd choose light over darkness any day.

Some kids have cameras and cell phones, but Simon had a little black notebook. His mom used it to take down telephone messages or doodle when she was on the landline, but after she got a cellphone, people rarely called the house. So he swiped the little black notebook and drew the moon and the stars and the constellations so he could gaze at them during the day. Knowing that they were still up there, even in full sunlight, gave him comfort.

And then eventually sleep would win out over Simon's musings and he'd find himself startled awake on the slanted roof, the closest star of all nearly blinding him, and his mother would be screaming at him from the lawn.

"You wanna break your neck!?!".

***

Time passed. Months blended into years. And during the awkwardness of junior high he had grown too big for the roof. The last time he'd tried sitting out there he was 10 and it started to sag under his weight. He was thankful he hadn't fallen through and made a real mess. Even so, he would catch himself nervously staring at the dimple of roof outside his bedroom window, hoping mom never saw the damage. On most clear nights when the temperature didn't dip below 40, Simon now slept outside on “the lawn”, stifling his fear of what may or may not be lurking in the woods.

Simon and his mom called it "the lawn" because it was in front of the house, and if his life was a T.V. show, there would be grass there. But Simon's life was not a T.V. show. With a script. With a plot. With a point. Simon's life was seemingly pointless and so his lawn was mostly dirt, animal droppings, and kitchen scraps thrown out the front door for the chickens to peck through. At night the chickens were corralled into a cruel, almost medieval looking coop, and Simon would try to find a "clean" spot to lie down so he could gaze up at his stars and sketch..

However, he only had one pair of jeans.

"Who needs more than one pair? You can wash them as often as you like!", his mom often reminded him.

And soon lying out on the lawn became forbidden because the dark reddish clay that passed for dirt on their property had started to stain everything in the washing machine a pale shade of orange.

"If I wanted an orange pair of panties, I'd go to Victoria's Secret. And they'd be bright orange."

At 13 Simon had finally been able to convince his mom that their dog Sandy didn't really need three blankets to sleep on and so he was allowed to take the most mangled of the fur coated blankets out into the yard for his star gazing.

And then for his 15th birthday his mom gave him a used Army surplus cot that may or may not have been stained with the blood of a wounded soldier. Simon doubted it was blood but his mom claimed she bought that one specifically because of the stains.

"Who knows. That might have been the bed of a great American hero!"

More likely than not the stained cot was cheaper. But in the end function was more important than aesthetics, so he was grateful not only for the gift but also for the silent permission that came with it: he could now sleep under the stars whenever he wished.

***

Simon never expected much for his birthday and what little his mom did give him was always practical. The cot kept him off the red clay dirt. His puffy green WalMart jacket kept him warm during the winters as he walked the half mile to the bus stop. His knock off sneakers kept his feet dry and when the bullies began to pick on him, they helped him to outrun their insults and their fists.

He had wanted a pair of Nikes but his mom found a pair that were “Just as good and half the price!”

Instead of featuring the famous Swoosh logo, Simon’s sneakers had a pink basketball painted on the side and the brand of the shoes boldly stood out, printed on the black tongues in bright white letters: “JOX”.

No one at school had ever heard of the brand “JOX” and with everyone in junior high trying hard to avoid eye contact, always looking down at their feet, it didn’t take long until a not-too-bright 8th grader started calling Simon “Jockstrap”. With a single stroke of stupidity Simon lost his name and would be known as “Jockstrap” for the next year and a half until, mercifully, the cheap sneakers fell apart.

The chicken coop was a birthday gift when Simon turned 11 and had been built by Tall Tommy (not to be mistaken with Big Tommy who dated his mom for three months when Simon was nine and who liked to hit Simon, but "Only when he was drinking".)

Unfortunately, Big Tommy was always drinking.

***

Only one of his mom's “friends” had ever made it all the way into his room. Once, when he was five, Simon woke up to find a man petting his head, whispering some story about a scorpion and a frog. A story filled with spittle and the smell of alcohol. Simon didn't scream but for once he wished he really was invisible.

As his eyes adjusted and the man continued to pet his hair, Simon saw that the man was wearing jeans and a black Stetson hat, but no shirt or shoes. The story must have become very amusing to its teller because soon his fits of drunken laughter summoned Simon's mom to his room.

It was all over so quick that Simon felt like he was still dreaming.

They would never speak of the incident so he had to rely on his memory. Somewhere in the haze of the nightmare Simon's mom had hit the storyteller across the back with a broom handle. Over and over and over. And then it was as if the man had taken an antidote for the poison in his system and was suddenly sober. He began screaming and was even more terrifying than before.

But Simon's mom stood her ground despite the storyteller's threats of violence. Of murder. Of things Simon was too young to understand that a man could do to a woman. All of these threats were no match for a protective mother with a broomstick. The storyteller scrambled off to his car, throwing rocks at the front windows but missing in his rage. Then an engine roared and he was gone. Simon's mom told him to go back to bed, that he “...shouldn't stay up so late”, then she shut his door and went back to her room.

There were pancakes for breakfast. A rare treat.

"Syrup is just liquid sugar and it'll rot your teeth!"

But there was no conversation. No talk about the night before. The pancakes said enough and Simon enjoyed them; they gave him strength and after breakfast he practiced sliding the heavy desk against his bedroom door for the first time.

***

There had been a string of boyfriends for as long as Simon could remember. Even a couple proposals of marriage. But nobody actually stuck around long enough for Simon to want to call them "dad", and only the creepy ones insisted that he call them that. The worst of them would eventually try to visit Simon's room late at night but now none of them got close because he would always slide the heavy wooden desk in front of his door before going to sleep.

It was part of his nightly ritual. Do the dishes to keep his mom happy. Brush his teeth and floss, because “Cavities are expensive!” Pick out one of his four or five shirts to wear, trying hard to remember the last time he had worn it to school, hoping that another kid wouldn't take notice and mock him for the “Vote for Pedro” t-shirt that was two sizes too small and whose outdated reference wasn't even ironic yet. Then he would pick up a book from the stack he had checked out from the Mill City library, climb the twelve bare wooden stairs to his room, slide the heavy desk in front of the door, and hope that whoever was sleeping over tonight wasn't strong enough to get past his blockade.

Tonight he grabbed the next book from his stack. An oversized iridescent green book without a dust cover but that wasn’t uncommon for books from the library’s “free” pile. What was unusual was the lack of any writing along the spine. Simon was intrigued by this heavy book and cuddled under his covers before opening the cover to discover that it wasn’t a book at all. It was a safe! Someone had glued the blank pages together and cut out the center. The secret compartment was nearly as deep as a brick and there was a manila envelope folded up inside. On the outside it read: “For Simon, on a cloudy day.”

Simon felt like he was being watched but there was no one else in his room. His mind couldn’t process what he was looking at. Maybe it was mom? Maybe someone else? But who else thought about Simon? He was invisible to everyone but his mother and the stars. He slowly opened the envelope, lifting just a corner of the flap, and then he saw the unmistakable green of money. A thick stack of 100 dollar bills. He counted them. Counted again. Counted a third time and realized that he was holding $20,000.

Enough for new clothes. For a new dishwasher for mom. For a new life. He looked out the window and the stars seemed to wink at him knowingly. Someone out in the world could see Simon, could see that he needed help. And for the first time in his life, he started to believe that he mattered.

***