Where Heaven Meets Earth

Tarik surveys the rain-sodden path between himself and the other end of the field and looks down at his earth-crusted shoes. Does he dare? He can still feel the sting of his mother’s wooden spoon from the last time he came into the house after a rain, globs of muck slinging from his pants and soles. He hadn’t intended to make such a mess, but he was beginning to see that wet shoes just couldn’t be helped. After all, it's only standing water, mud, and soggy grass that separated him from his most favorite place on earth: The Little Free Library.

He clutches the book in his hand to his chest and plunges into the puddles, sloshes through the grass, and marches to the book repository on the other side of the field. Tarik slides the book into the shoddy book shelter and begins rifling through the selection, hungrily eyeing new titles in search of his next great escape. He finds one and takes it to his chest to protect it from the slog out of field.

As he turns to leave, he stops. There in the grass on the other side of the Little Free Library lies a small black book.

A book shouldn’t be left out like this, he thinks. Tarik leans over to pick it up. He can feel that it's dry, so it hasn't been off the shelf for too long, but as he holds it, he can see that it isn’t an actual book. It is something personal. It belongs to someone. It’s a notebook.

Tarik scans the area. There is no one in the park that afternoon except for a lady jogging on the other side of the parking lot. He thumbs through the pages, looking for a name, and sees only doodles, poems, sketches, and a few math equations. Nothing of note. Just then, a car pulls into the parking lot and a woman sticks her head out the window.

“TAR-reek!” she shouts, and he jumps, dropping the little black notebook into a puddle. “Your shoes better be dry!” Tarik tries to rescue the little black notebook before it hits the puddle, but it was too late. Half is submerged, soaking the pages with a gritty brown silt. “Sorry, Mum!” he shouts, shaking the book. He brings it to his chest with the other book and sloshes through the field towards the car to the wails of his mother.

Tarik places the notebook on his bedroom windowsill, opening the covers to allow the pages to dry, and plops onto his bed. He was careful to remove his shoes before entering the house this time, but his pants are soaked up to his knees. He shimmies out of them and climbs under the covers, warming himself with his new book.

It is already dark when he jerks awake. The free book, only pages away from finished, has fallen to the floor. Tarik grabs it, sits up, and puts the book on his windowsill right next to the little black notebook, which has fallen over. He eyes it for a moment, wondering why he brought it home, why didn’t he just leave it at the park, and takes it from the perch and thumbs through it. Even upon closer examination, Tarik doesn’t find anything that made sense about the notebook’s purpose. It is still just a book with a few doodles, some sketches, poems, and numbers. Just then, his mother knocks on his door.

“Come eat,” she says, eyeing him. “But put on some pants first.” Blushing, Tarik pulls the covers over himself. “And thanks for leaving your shoes outside.”

“Okay, mum, be right there.” He shuts the notebook and slides it under his pillow.

The next day, Tarik is ready to exchange the free book. His shoes are still moist from his adventure the day before, so he’s not concerned about the water continuing in swaths. Once again, he plunges into the field and marches to the book stand. The mud is thicker now since the water had time to mix and loosen the earth, so his shoes are weighed down with clods of muck.

As he approaches his Little Free Library, he sees a sheet of white paper taped to the front, its lower half fluttering in the breeze. He pulls it off the frame and reads it.

REWARD for the return of my little black notebook.

There’s a phone number but nothing else. Tarik considers it for a moment, then crumples the paper and stuffs it into his pocket. He puts his finished book back on the shelf and begins looking for his next escape.

He takes off his shoes before entering the house, this time placing them in the sun to hasten drying and goes straight to his room and shuts the door. He plops onto the bed and pulls out the little black notebook from under his pillow.

“What’s so special about you, little book?” he whispers, opening the pages once more to see if there was something he’s missed that would warrant a reward for its return. He turns them slowly, reading over every word, taking in every sketch, totaling all the simple math equations. But again, the significance escapes him. There doesn’t seem to be any sort of connection from one page to the next. Just random thoughts. He has to be missing something. He brushes away the dried dirt from its pages, polishes the outside with a wet paper towel, and sets it on the windowsill. Then he places the book he’s chosen today in the center of his bed, pulls out the crumped paper from his pocket, and sets out down the hallway to the kitchen, where his mother’s phone sits open on the charger. He dials the number.

He didn’t expect the man on the other line would want to meet him today, but he does. Right now, in fact. He trudges back to his room and eyes the book in the center of his bed. He won’t get to read it before making another trip to the Little Free Library, where the man wants to meet. It’s fine, he thinks, he can always read it later tonight, but this will ruin his streak: He’s never stood before the book shelter without bringing back an offering, usually the book from the day before. He will just have to take something else.

Tarik finds a substitute book to offer and grabs the little black notebook from the windowsill. He sneaks out the back door of their apartment and quietly pulls it shut. He forces his feet back into his soaking wet, muddied shoes, and runs down the stairs and towards the park, each step a squelch of sodden soles.

Tarik runs until the book repository is in sight. He stops to catch his breath. From where he stands, he can see an older man, standing aloft with his hands in his pockets. He doesn’t seem all too important. Just an ordinary soul he might see walking a dog down the street, in the checkout at the grocery, or waiting for a bus. Tarik makes his way toward him.

“Oh, hello!” the man says as Tarik approaches. “Are you the young fella I spoke to?”

“Yes, sir,” Tarik says. “H-Here’s your notebook.” Tarik reaches into his coat and pulls it out to hand to him. “It got a little dirty.” Tarik sniffs and wipes his nose. “Sorry.”

The old man reaches for it and takes it into his hands. He touches its cover, gently feeling where the dirt had been wiped away. He opens the pages and brushes them with the back of his hand, slowly turning page by page. They stand together in silence. The man exhales relief.

“Do you like to read?” he asks Tarik without looking at him.

“Yes, sir,” he answers. “I read every day.”

The old man chuckles. “Of course you do. Judging by your shoes, the tracks through here, and the fact that you have my notebook, my guess is you come here a lot.”

Tarik looks at his dirty shoes and doesn’t say anything. Instead, he shifts back and forth and handles the substitute book he’s waiting to shelve in the Little Free Library. As he steps toward the shelf, watching the man turn through his pages in resplendent bliss, he asks, “Why is your notebook so important to you?” Before he can answer, Tarik confesses, “I read it. I mean, I..I looked at it. Twice. I didn’t … I don’t understand it.”

The man looks at Tarik, his weighty gaze settling on the boy. “Do you have a secret place?” the man asks. “Where no one will bother you, or ask you to explain why you do what you do for your secret place? A place where it’s just you and all your thoughts are allowed to be?” The man holds up the notebook. “This is that place for me. It’s the net that catches my thoughts. The valve that releases my steam. A little piece of paradise, a space where I can leave earth if only for a moment, a space where I can touch heaven, even if it’s just in my mind.” The man shines like an angel in the park. “Do you understand now?”

Tarik tilts his head and considers the space where he presently stands. The mud, the water, the sullied grass. The way it stays on him long after he’s left, book in hand, a new story awaiting him. The adventures teeming on the shelf just for him. The exchange. The freedom. The solitude. The promise that he can come back again and again and again. He nods. “I do,” he says.

“I just wish my piece of heaven didn’t leave me so dirty.”

“What would you do to change it?” the man asks.

Tarik thinks. “I would remake it,” he says, “so my feet don’t touch the ground. So that I could fly, clean and happy, and I would never get in trouble.”

The man smiles, holds up his little black notebook.

“I’ll do it for you.”

Several weeks later, the phone on the counter rings. Tarik’s mum answers.

“Hello, this is Steve Underwood with The Sentinel and I was calling to speak to the parents of … uh… Tarik?”

“This is his mum,” she says, narrowing her eyes on Tarik, who sits at the kitchen table, a book in hand.

“Yes, I wanted to get your comments on the record about your son.”

“What is this about?” Tarik and mum lock eyes.

“It seems a $20,000 reward was donated in his name to create a sidewalk system in Adler Park that leads right to the book repository. The contractors just finished refurbishing the Little Free Library and installed two new benches nearby. They’re calling that section of the park ‘Where Heaven Meets Earth’ in honor of Tarik. There’s even a plaque. It’s a beautiful contribution to our city and our parks and I wanted to know what his mother thinks about it.”

She stares at Tarik, mouth slack.

“Ma’am?” the reporter says.

“You got a $20,000 reward?” she says, breathless. “How …? Where…?”

He drops his head and looks at his clean, dry shoes.

He smiles.