WISH UPON A STAR
© 2000 Leonard Smith

It has been dark for several hours and the waning moon has dropped below the horizon. The truck rolls effortlessly across the flat, wide plains of west Texas. Only the highway and the painted lane stripes are visible. I scan FM for an oldies station -- darn hard to find here in Texas; but there is one, finally. James Brown is telling me he feels good. I feel good, too. I turn up the volume, start drumming the wheel in time.

Out in the darkness, a shooting star blazes brilliantly (though briefly) in the night sky. Several miles later, a sign marks a roadside park ahead one mile. Then, at ½ mile is another, similar sign. I disengage the cruise and downshift. Pulling off the road, I stop, kill the engine and get out. I walk across the park, away from the single light that marks a picnic table.

I look up and there it is -- just as it always has been -- the Milky Way. When I was very little, I heard of it and went out one night to look for it. I lived in a city and the lights burned away all but the brightest stars. I could not see it and thought it only a figment of some wild imagination. It was like the engraving in an old encyclopedia that depicted a huge snake crushing a deer; something enhanced by imagination and wishful thinking.

It was years later that I did see it, and I have not forgotten that moment, or that night.  I attended a high school for boys only. I was at a school dance at another school, one for girls only. My companion for this evening was a friend; not a date, but a friend. We had been just friends for years.  We had gone through grade school together then on to different high schools.

During those high school years, I became aware of her, but remained unaware at the same time. She was a tall, slender girl with sky-blue eyes and hair the color of wheat straw.  Her name is Joan.  In the summer, we often met at the swimming pool that was close to both our homes. She wore a one-piece, pink suit. She would hand me Coppertone, and I squeezed a long thread of it onto her back, spread it out and massaged it into the summer-brown skin.

In autumn, I remember waiting for her at the bus stop. We rode different city busses that crossed routes several blocks from home. There, I would meet her and walk her home.

It was on an autumn night with this girl at a dance when I first saw the Milky Way.  We had left the dance and gone out on the patio. The school was in the country and before us stretched the lights of the city out to the horizon. We stood there, hand in hand, and looked up.  There it was -- a brilliant band of millions of stars -- the Milky Way.  I felt her warm hand in mine, the cool night air on my face, and the stars above, streaming across the sky to meet the city lights at the horizon.

I cannot remember the perfume she wore; though her dress was a pale blue. Later, I danced with her, felt her back against my hand. I smelled the perfume in her hair.  And, for the first time, I saw the stars in her eyes.

The high school years end for everyone, and they did for us. Her family moved away.  A year later, I went into the Army. I was home on leave following Basic Training, and my brother said that Joan had been by and asking about me. I asked what she said. He replied she was only in town for a few days. I had missed her.

It has been many years now. My life has followed its course, and I am sure her life has also.

Memories are like the leaves of autumn.  Most are destined to blow across the land, swirl in corners, break and crumble to be gone forever. A few remain, and the precious few are gathered up at the peak of autumn splendor and pressed between the pages of a book as treasures gathered to the heart. And, this memory is one of those -- a memory captured in a time before there was a Vietnam, a time before the “reality of life,” as it came to be.

From time to time, I stop and search the night sky, make the connection and am once again at the dance with Joan. Once again, I feel her warm hand in mine and feel her close to me as some silent song drifts by unhearing ears. We turn on the floor in slow, measured cadence. I look in her eyes and am caught in time, a moment in infinity.

Out on the highway, a truck screams by. I turn and look at its disappearing taillights. My future is there on that road. I climb back in the truck, turn on the FM, and sit quietly. The Platters are singing an old wonderful song, The words drift peacefully through the night, “Out of the mist your voice is calling.”

Yes, indeed, it does.

I have never made any effort to find her in all the years since then. I suppose her old high school maintains a list of alumnae. I could call and perhaps get a phone or address. Our lives have gone along separate ways. What I have is a pleasant memory of a time in time. But, just once, I would like to look in her eyes again and see the stars.

I turn the key, the engine fires, and I am off down the road. In a few hours, it will be light and Pecos will be in the windshield. The bright sun will burn away the stars; but again some night, I will stop, pull over and look up.