“You can open ONE present tonight,” my mother said. “But ONLY one. Since it’s Christmas Eve.”
My feet only touched the ground twice.
I ran to the Christmas tree like a squirrel on illegal stimulants. Our tree was pitiful. Charlie Brown had nothing on us.
Beneath the tree was one, skinny, oblong box with my name on it. I selected this box. I tore the paper.
It was a telescope.
“It’s not much,” Mama said.
I looked at the box. “It’s a telescope.”
Mama smiled. “So you really can read.”
It was a 40mm refractor called a Halleyscope. It must have cost my mother all she had. My mother cleaned condos and threw newspapers for a living.
This was her the coupe de grace of her Christmas bounty. The rest of my gifts would be cans of smoked oysters, jars of mayonnaise, or Haynes underpants.
“I know you like looking at stars,” she said.
It was true. I loved the stars. Every week I watched “Star Gazers” on PBS, hosted by Jack Horkheimer, the Star Hustler. The
world’s only weekly television series on naked eye astronomy. Still on the air today. I rarely missed an episode.
I took the telescope into the yard. I set up the tripod. I knew exactly what I would point the scope at that night. I aimed the lens at the moon.
Namely, because it was Christmas Eve. And the moon was full that year. For the first time on a holiday weekend since 1977, the moon was full. The next time the moon would be full would be 2015. After that, 2034. This was a big deal in the Metonic Cycle. A big, big deal.
I aimed my Halleyscope at the sky. There were 5,185 craters on the moon looking back at me. Crisp and clear.
I nearly cried. But then, of course fatherless boys don’t actually cry. Children of suicide don’t cry. Especially…