Day 52 #2
They set up camp a few dozen feet from the truck, the night becoming brighter as they adjusted to the only light, emanating from the stars and the crescent moon.
Jesse tried not to think about snakes and rodents and other nocturnal things that might be slithering around and hoped they had the good sense to be asleep.
He took careful steps and studied Randall, his pupils dilated behind his thick glasses.
It was now past the autumnal equinox, the time of year when the night was growing longer than the day and the air was noticeably cooler.
Jesse zipped his hoodie up to his neck and shoved his hands in the pockets.
And when Randall was satisfied he’d found the right rocks to anchor his tripod, Jesse took a moment to look up.
The night sky exploded with not just stars but clouds of dust and gas in vibrant colors.
His entire life, Jesse had looked at the sky; not once had he seen it like this.
“Whoa,” he whispered. He wasn’t sure if Randall heard him or not, but it didn’t matter and he didn’t care.
Slowly appreciation dripped over him until he was soaked with understanding.
Norman had made the right choice, the only choice.
When the stars looked like this, the only logical response was to touch them.
I saw the world from the stars’ point of view, and the world was much more intriguing.
It was a quote from somewhere, a book or a poem he’d read but couldn’t recall.
“Tell me everything,” he said to the twinkling lights in the sky, wanting to know their secrets.
This time Randall did hear him and began to detail both the equipment and his process in mind-numbing detail.
Randall explained about the tripod he chose, the Mach3, which he described as “a serious bit of kit.” Jesse didn’t know what that meant exactly, but he imagined it cost quite a bundle.
In fact, Randall had three cameras with assorted lenses, and Jesse began to wonder if this was why he lived in an Airstream—maybe all his money went to this hobby.
Randall urged him to step back when he placed the tripod, since the Mach3 had spiked feet.
Jesse nearly tripped over a rock, impossible as it was to divert his gaze from the sky.
It was one of the last nights of the year to view the Milky Way, at least its core, which stood almost vertical.
Soon the core would remain below the horizon and wouldn’t show itself again until spring.
Jesse’s eyes watered, thinking this was his last chance to see Norman, who in a few weeks would totally disappear from view.
“You ever been married, Randall?”
Randall remained focused on his tripod, adjusting one of its legs until he was satisfied it was level. “Why do you ask?”
Jesse hesitated before stammering, “I wish Norman could see this.” Was Randall someone to open up to?
In the moment—or even of late—there was no one else.
“We have different interests a lot of the time. But I think this is something we could appreciate together.” He imagined them in the teak chairs in their backyard, taking all of it in, instead of Norman lost in his app.
Often, Jesse thought they were too attached at the hip.
But what could life have been if they shared even more with one another?
In all this time, Jesse didn’t think he’d ever missed Norman more.
Once he’d made one final adjustment, Randall indulged him in conversation.
“My wife said to me once that every relationship has a thermostat setting. It was something she’d seen on one of those talk shows.
You can adjust the thermostat a few degrees in either direction, but it will always revert back to the setting where it’s most comfortable. You ever hear of anything like that?”
“No,” Jesse replied, and then wondered what his setting with Norman would be. Energy saver, perhaps.
“She was never comfortable with our setting, always too cold, she’d say. Eventually she ran off with our tax guy, if you can believe that.”
Jesse was appalled. Tax guys were not exactly known for running hot.
“Soon after, I bought the Airstream and moved out here to live a simpler life. And pay as little in taxes as I could.” Jesse didn’t press Randall, who returned to his camera bag to select just the right lens, further.
Begrudgingly, Jesse admired the precision with which Randall worked.
It was funny to see a man who just a day ago seemed not to have a purpose other than to annoy him turn out to have a real talent and passion.
Norman had read Jesse’s books through different drafts, but that was Norman seeing the output of his labor—not the labor itself.
If Randall had shown him a picture he took of the Milky Way, it wouldn’t have the same impact as seeing him take it.
Jesse was suddenly overcome with sadness that Norman had never sat in on one of his classes—he wanted Norman to know that side of him.
The teacher, the one with knowledge to impart.
And he desperately wanted to see not just Norman’s blueprints, but his husband actually drafting. “You really know what you’re doing.”
Randall continued his setup without missing a beat.
“I practice this at home in total darkness.” The insinuation: blindfolded.
It made Jesse nervous, the thought of Randall pointing a camera his way under the cover of night, especially with these intimidating lenses.
What had he observed? What did he really know about the night Norman disappeared?
“What kind of photo are you going for?” Jesse asked, his voice reed-thin.
Randall simply pointed up, and Jesse wondered if he wasn’t already regretting inviting a guest.
Jesse cleared his throat. “Like, do you just point and click at the sky? Or are you trying to frame something in the foreground?” That afternoon Jesse had googled images of the Milky Way to see what he was in for, and he had seen both kinds of shots.
“See that Joshua tree?” Randall asked. “The one that looks like it’s in prayer.”
To Jesse, it looked like the tree had its arms raised in surrender. “Yeah.”
“I’m using that to frame my shot. Come see.”
Jesse hadn’t actually expected to be invited to look through the lens.
Randall seemed strangely protective of his equipment and looked at Jesse’s movements with some disdain like he was a wild bull or a klutz.
He delicately approached the camera, careful to avoid kicking the tripod legs.
When he looked at the digital screen on the back, he understood Randall in a new and profound way.
The Joshua tree grew by itself, whereas others seemed to take root in groves.
Randall’s tree, like Randall himself, was a loner, but instead of appearing sad it seemed strong.
Resilient. And there was something remarkably human about not just its silhouette but its very presence.
Life itself was a miracle, particularly this life, on this planet, under a blanket of endless stars.
It was Randall, alone in an Airstream, on a vast plot of land.
It was a Joshua tree, alone in the desert, standing against the galaxy.
It was Jesse without Norman, the man who gave his whole adulthood context.
Jesse suddenly mourned every night he had spent indoors or looking straight ahead instead of up, consumed with the drudgery of circadian life.
How is it that night followed every day, and we hardly ever marveled?
Once again, Norman and his stupid app had been right.
“There are more than two trillion galaxies in the observable universe, each with an unknowable number of stars.”
“Trillion?” Jesse asked. “With a t?”
Randall went on to explain that there were more stars than there were grains of sand on the shores of all the lakes and oceans on Earth.
The light from the stars we can see was emitted long before all of humankind.
And it all started with a tiny particle of incredible density that expanded with the addition of heat.
It was impossible not to think of his relationship with Norman in that context.
Something so vast that began with such a small event, the collision of two people on a beach, igniting a spark that expanded their lives beyond either of their imaginations.
In that moment, Jesse desperately didn’t want his life to become small again.
He didn’t want to give up the house, he didn’t want to live in a trailer.
He didn’t want to be a loner. He didn’t want to be his mother.
He didn’t want to pay taxes, but he didn’t want to live on the outskirts of society, either. He had to find a way to connect.
“Randall. What did you mean last night when you said I was looking in the wrong direction?”
“Excuse me?” His neighbor seemed confused, like he’d been expecting a compliment on his composition.
“Last night, in my driveway.”
“Oh, that.”
Yes, that.
Randall gently nudged Jesse away from the camera and looked through the lens one more time, then stepped back to study the digital screen, the corners of his mouth drooping ever so slightly as if he were witnessing two very different views of the sky.
He didn’t speak for a long time, taking a series of test photos with various exposures, stopping in between to fuss with the focus.
Only when he seemed satisfied and ready to take what Jesse imagined to be a keeper did he reply.
“You were looking for answers, no? I recognized that look on your face.” Normally Jesse would find something absurd about the idea of Randall being a student of humanity, but tonight he was discovering his neighbor anew.
“I used to be just like you. When people want answers, they look up. Always have, since the dawn of time. Since embers first flew from the earliest fires.”
It was, in fact, exactly what they were doing right now.