Too Early for the Moon, Too Late for the Sun

“It’s a compass Pep.”  Jerry looked down at the boy holding the compass in his pudgy hand, his fingers straight out, the compass in his palm, the red needle moving to and fro, searching for north. The little boy took his eyes off the compass for an instant to look up at the old man standing beside him in the driveway.  

“A compass?”  

“It helps you find your way Pep.”  Jerry thought back to finding the small brass compass in the filing drawer where he kept their wills and Sarah’s last wishes. He tried to remember how old he was when his Dad had given it to him.  It must have been in that drawer for over forty years. 

 

Jerry figured he’d missed the mark again.  Last year’s gift giving, his first without her, had not gone well.    Bamboo wok steamers for the women and clocks for the men was a stroke of genius; efficient, economically sound, an organizational dream.    He used the same wrapping paper and piled them in the trunk of the car.  Even in the dark of a driveway before heading into a house alive with light and music, he could tell by just feeling them, which was the wok and which was the clock.  The rhyme made it even better.  But, he had to admit, watching them open last year’s gift, their responses were muted at best.  

His mind went back to Christmases before, before she became sick.  Sarah would have individual gifts for everyone.  All carefully wrapped, placed in gift bags, organized by households, with hostess gifts included.  Jerry really didn’t understand the concept of a hostess gift.

“A compass?” Pep looked up at him again.  “It’s ok Mr. Jerry, my mom has a gips that tells us where to go.”  The boy continued to watch the needle struggle to overcome his fidgeting nature and settle on north.  

“A gips? I don’t understand you sometimes, Pep.  I really don’t.”  Jerry jammed his hands into his pockets, feeling a balled up kleenex in the right one.

“You know?  The gips that talks to you in the car.” It was Jerry’s turn to stare.  The top of the boy’s head, the part in his hair, revealing white scalp, the dripping nose and the palm of the hand, outstretched swaying giving the compass a nervous twitch.  

“The only thing that talks to me in the car is me.”  He looked down at the boy staring at him.  Sarah never talked in the car, she slept.  Pep turned circles in the driveway, his boots scuffed the dusting of snow on the asphalt. “What are you doing?”  The boy stopped doing circles, finishing facing away from the old man.  He looked over his shoulder at Jerry standing behind him wearing that funny little hat he always wore and those boots that his mom told him were  “galoshes.” The word made him giggle.

“I’m trying to get the arrow lined up with the arrow on the bottom but I can’t do it.  It keeps moving.”

“Stop moving, Pep.”  Jerry walked over to the boy.  “Just stand still and wait for the needle to settle. See?”   Jerry was over Pep’s shoulder.  “See its settling down.  Just wait.  Good.”  Jerry put his hands on Pepper’s shoulders and slowly rotated him, watching the compass in the outstretched hand, it’s red directional arrow, settling in the painted arrow, “the house” on the bottom of the compass.  “There.  See.  Look up.”  The little boy looked up at his house across the cul de sac. “See, that’s north.”  Jerry pointed over the boy's shoulder at the semi-detached house that once held a father too.

“My house is north?”  The little boy’s eyes moved from the arrow on the compass to his house and back again.  Jerry looked over Pep’s head, over the little house with its sagging Christmas lights, letting his eyes move up toward the darkening, lake blue sky.  It was too early for the moon, too late for the sun and the north star had not yet come over the top of the house.  

“That can’t be right Mr. Jerry.  My house can’t be north.” Jerry brought his eyes back to the boy.

“Why not?”

“If my house was north, Santa would live there.  He doesn’t.  I checked.”  The boy wiped the clear drip from his nose with his sleeve, his tongue licking underneath.  Jerry had not considered this problem when he slipped the compass into his pocket for the next time he saw the boy.  “Mr. Jerry?”  Pep turned back toward the old man, snow falling on his little hat, the arrow stuck to its task and  pointed behind him at his house.  “Mr. Jerry?”

Jerry tried to think of an answer.  He looked over the boy’s head toward his little house, the north star just starting to climb above it.  “There’s a difference between north and the North Pole, Pep.  If you followed that arrow and walked for a really long time, you would finally come to the North Pole and Santa. Jerry crouched down to the boy, putting his knee on the asphalt of his driveway, feeling his trousers getting wet. He turned Pep back towards his house, placing the arrow back in its home.

“How long would I have to walk Mr. Jerry?”  Jerry put his hand on the boy’s shoulder and pointed to the star rising above his house.  

“You pretty much have to walk to that star.  You use that as your guide.  The compass and the star.  But you can't go by yourself, OK?”

“Ya.  that’s too far for me Mr. Jerry.  I couldn’t walk that far.”  His tongue went to the new drip under his nose. 

“It would take a long time, Pep.  A lifetime.”

“Thanks for the compass Mr. Jerry, I gotta go now.” The boy was down the end of the driveway.  “Merry Christmas, Mr. Jerry.”  He didn’t look back at the old man.

“OK Pep.  Merry Christmas.”  His hand was raised in a half wave.  He watched the boy walk across the grassy circle that served as the centre of their cul de sac, past their melting snowman.  The little boy had his arm out in front of him, his eyes on the compass, his path moving to and fro as he tried to keep the arrow in the house, pointing north.  When the boy was safely inside, Jerry turned back to his house sitting in the December darkness, the stars slowly emerging from their day blindness above it.  

He thought of a little boy and a compass, of missing fathers and of Sarah and how wonderful a long, quiet walk toward the stars would be.