The Village of the Stars

William’s mother poured him a glass of water to help him calm down, so he picked it up and drank it, only it was actually vodka and he coughed and spewed it all over the tiny table in Room 05. The mash potatoes on the little metal plate were drenched.

William gasped and clutched his throat, and she rolled her eyes and took a sip from her own glass. He kicked her under the table with his melodramatic spasming – there wasn’t much room in Room 05 at all, just enough for the tiny table, a paltry square of shag carpet, and a queen size bed that was grossly inadequate for a family of three – and she didn’t flinch.

“What’s the matter, Highschool?” she said. “I thought you were ‘a grown up now.’” Her quotes gouged the air.

William gasped. “What is that?”

“Vodka, honey.” She sipped. “I’m sure you and all your ‘grown up friends’ are familiar with it.”

“Mom! I’m only fifteen!”

She took another sip, never taking her eyes off his. “Old enough to break my heart, Willy-Billy.”

“Mom!” He trembled with red faced frustration, and then the red faded to grey as he remembered the events of the day, and the momentary break, welcome even if the vodka wasn’t, faded into oblivion. “Mom… I saw a man die today.”

She nodded, poured him more vodka. It was shaping up to be a mediocre summer vacation.

It all started when his dad said, “Guess what, Champ? School’s out and we’re going camping!”

It was bad enough he’d miss out on yet another summer with his friends, worse that his entirely valid protests fell on deaf ears, insufferable to spend more of his life on a boring family vacation, but the kicker was, he had to go around wearing his mother’s spare high-visibility parka. Because he didn’t pack his own. Because why would you pack one to go camping.

Because “Why would I know you meant camping in Antarctica!? Why don’t you ever tell me anything!?”

“Don’t shout,” said Mom. “You want to be an adult, you gotta pay attention.”

“Your mother’s right,” said Dad. “Besides, chin up! It’ll give you a chance to see some wildlife up close and personal. Maybe we’ll even run into some polar bears!”

“There are no polar bears in Antarctica,” William muttered.

Chet Beason, a work-friend of his parents, was their ride. As always. Which meant, of course, that this family “vacation” was one of those fake work vacations where everything was comped but you missed out on touristy stuff because of work obligations. Not that there was much touristing to be had on a giant frozen wasteland, or their basecamp, the hamlet of Villa Las Estrellas.

They took a boat to the coast, and then Chet helicoptered them the rest of the way in the company Black Hawk. Well, part of the way. He dropped them off in the middle of nowhere with a bundle of cross-country skis, and they skied the rest of the way into town.

William bitched most of the way there. “Whoever heard of skiing in summer?”

“Just be happy it’s a balmy minus six out,” said Dad.

William lamented that they couldn’t just snowmobile around, but even he noted the bare patches of dirt poking through the snow here and there.

They rolled into Villa Las Estrellas sometime in the evening. The hamlet boasted little. There were a handful of boxy houses on a rocky coast, a hostel, a sports centre, a souvenir shop, and the newly built Hotel del Sur: five luxury ocean view rooms, full matchbox size, with integrated toilet/closet and microshower. Total population: dozens.

Even though they were the only guests, William’s parents refused to get him his own room.

“What if you get nightmares?”

“I won’t, Mom! I’m not a kid anymore!”

“Well, it just doesn’t make fiscal sense,” Dad added, nailing the conversation shut.

It was looking to be a miserable summer. The ‘camping’ ended up being random trips into the countryside, by Mom in one direction and Dad in the other, where they just hiked around looking at things, or for things, or whatever, with their binoculars. “Animal watching,” Dad called it, even though he completely ignored the whales just off the coast – even when William waved his arms and said “Dad! Dad! Over there! Whales! Dad!” – and instead kept watching a trio of bland prefab buildings probably belonging to some boring ice research team.

When he moaned about not having cell reception while venturing out with Mom, she rolled her eyes.

“Oh, Willy,” she said. “Oh, my Willy-Billy. My little lia-Billy-ty.” She planted her hands on her hips and ignored his scowl. “Whatever happened to you? You used to be such a dear little boy. Mama’s little sweetie, all fat hands and rosy cheeks.”

“Yeah well,” he said, huffing defensively, “you said there’d be internet. And anyway, I’m not a kid anymore. I’m going to high school next year. I’m basically a grown up.”

“More like a gangly plate of cheese.”

“What? Cheese, Mom?”

“To go with all the whining.”

After that she sent him back to town to “make friends with the locals.” He gasped, slapped by the sting of rejection. But it quickly faded when he realized he’d been given freedom, even if it was freedom in Antarctica. Independence was a heady brew indeed, and as he hiked back to town his excitement bubbled. Perhaps he should make friends with the locals. Perhaps he could salvage this summer. Perhaps he would meet a girl and maybe, just maybe, see a boob.

Alas, there were only seven other kids in town, and they were all twelve, boys, and army brats. They only spoke Spanish and all hung together like a pack of hounds. Or wolves. William gave them a wide berth.

But they smelled fear and locked on.

His third week of vacation, and his first free from the shackles of parental supervision, he fled from the hounds after they’d cornered him, burst into the sports centre, and found sanctuary therein after he ran into a man and knocked them both over. When the man rose again, giant and red-faced, muscles bulging as his fists hardened, the pack of wild brats fled howling – and they left William to his fate.

“Oh my god!” said William, scrambling to his feet. “I am so sorry!”

The man snorted, as a bull might.

William noticed some of the man’s things lay on the floor, where he’d knocked them. He grabbed a – a rag? No, a wig – and a pair of glasses with, curiously, more hair attached to them. When he held them out the man snatched them. He slapped the wig onto his bald head, and shoved the glasses onto his clean-shaven face, where the glasses-hair settled into a mustache.

“What is the matter with you?” the man asked, his accent off-English, his tone barely controlled. But, controlled.

And maybe that control, that necessary care, carried a hint of sincerity in it, and that was all William needed to let open the floodgates. He lamented the terrible local kids and his parents who never listened and this whole horrible vacation and he missed his friends and he was wasting the best years of his life and and and–

“Easy, kid, easy!” The man grabbed him by the shoulders, gently, and looked him in the eyes. “It’s okay. You got dealt a rough hand, I get it, but you must breathe. Now, this is a heavy discussion, and the hallway of a sports centre is not worthy of such a thing. Also, we are blocking the ping pong tables. Come, come, follow me.”

They went back to the home the man was renting and he made tea. They shared names. The man’s was John Everyman, a name he insisted was real, and he was just an ordinary marine biologist trying to get by. This excited William – something he was loathe to admit, as this was a boring and horrible family vacation after all – as he remembered spotting whales off the coast, and before he knew it, he’d made a friend in John.

Befriending an old man with a fake mustache hadn’t ever been a summer dream of William’s, but, well. Could be worse, he supposed.

“Those humpbacks are fascinating fish,” John said. “Stomach big enough to fit a tonne of cargo. Er, like krill. That’s whale food. And they slip right under boats, they do. Right across borders, with the coast guard none the wiser. Potentially a very useful fish, yes.”

“Wow!” William had never considered learning could be fun, but he discovered that with his back against the wall, with no other alternatives, and with the internet still shoddy, it was quite tolerable indeed. “Hey, John? Do you think I could be a marine biologist one day?”

John was taken aback. “You… you wish to be a marine biologist? A real one?” William nodded. “And I inspired you to want this?”

When William nodded again, John had to dab a tear away with a handkerchief. “Never have I inspired anything before,” John said, gazing into the distance and seemingly talking to himself, “other than violence and divorce.” He suddenly slapped the table. “Well, of course you can! It’s easy enough.”

“What do I need to do?”

“First, study hard. These damn fish have a lot of moving parts. Next,” and his breathing trembled. “Next, avoid temptation. Avoid the easy way out. Whether that’s easy grades, easy money, or easy women. There is such a thing as the wrong crowd, believe me, but they won’t seem wrong until you’re in too deep. Until they own you.” He took a moment of silence. “Finally, maybe most important of all, have a dream.”

“I do! I mean, I think I do.”

“Have that dream and hold on to it, William. Don’t let them take it from you. Don’t let them bind you with their shoulds, their you can’ts, their not for yous. Always keep it in your heart, and don’t let that light go out.”

A silence settled on them as William absorbed all the wisdom. He felt the light in his heart. He saw a candle, and saw the flame grow brighter and bigger, becoming a fire, a conflagration, an inferno.

“Oh, and Wikipedia,” John added. “Damn fine site, don’t listen to what they say. Use it without shame or guilt.”

They became fast friends over the next week, often sharing an evening tea and discussing academia and the world and life, John indulging a long-dead ambition to teach and William insatiable for knowledge, and for the patient acknowledgement of someone who respected him.

William’s parents were ambivalent about his newfound ambitions. His father just nodded along, but it was clear his mind was on camping. His mother was dubious. “Marine biology, honey?” she said. “Where did this come from all of a sudden?”

“I’ve always loved the ocean!”

“Yeah, right. Is this like when you really wanted to be a dancer? And we signed you up for all those classes? And you went to one and threw a tantrum and quit? Or like when you were five and you wanted to be a jumbo jet?”

“Mom! I’m serious! I want to be a marine biologist!”

“We’ll see. College is expensive, honey.”

On the eighth day after they met, John poured the tea into a thermos and suggested they take a ramble down the coast. When they stepped out of his home, William looked up to see a wonderfully clear sky, promising a flawless view of the stars that Villa Las Estrellas was famous for. He took a deep breath of the impossibly pure air, and felt like he was on solid ground for the first time in his life.

Then he heard a boom and a wet shplarrp! and saw John’s head explode and splatter against his front door.

William screamed. John’s body collapsed and blood geysered out of his neck stump. Other people screamed too, and three of the army brats fainted.

Of the wig, nothing remained.

The police, or the military, or someone, whisked William away, and after a flurry of questioning he wound up under the doctor’s care, where Mom ultimately picked him up.

William ignored the vodka and rose from the tiny table in the tiny Room 05. He shivered. “Mom, I saw a man die today. I saw John die. I’m… I’m scared.”

Her face softened at once, and she rose too. Like a magnet, like a comet, like a shooting star that granted its wish, William fell into her embrace, once again the tiny little boy she thought she’d lost to the ravages of time.

“Aw, there there now, honey! Mama’s here.”

“I just can’t believe John’s dead.” William’s voice was a muffle, and she rocked him back and forth.

“Yes, honey, yes. And I can’t believe the bastard was hiding right under our noses all this time.”

“Yeah, Mom. I just–” Suddenly William pulled back, wiped his eyes on his forearm, blinked. “Wait, what?”

“What luck that you led us right to him!” She squeezed his cheek. “Mama’s little bloodhound. I’m so proud of you!”

“What?” It was then that William noticed the comically large rifle sitting half-disassembled on the bed. A sniper rifle, he suspected, though he’d never seen one in real life – and while they were fun in games, the real item was a thing of cold metal radiating unsubtle menace.

“Sorry for spattering brains all over your shoes.”

Then, for the first time in his life in front of his mother, William dropped an f-bomb. It shook the whole room and rattled the entire town, and somewhere nearby a glacier cracked.

“Language!” she said.

“You murdered him! I can’t believe it!”

“It’s not murder, it’s an assassination! I don’t do this for fun, you know? It’s a job.”

“I can’t believe this! He was my friend!”

“He was an international drug smuggler that pissed off the wrong organizations, hon. A bad apple. I don’t want you hanging out with people like that. The wrong crowd.”

The wrong crowd. John’s words echoed in his mind. Could it be? But John wasn’t a bad guy, was he?

“Anyway, I don’t understand why you’re so upset,” she said. “I tell you, I can’t wait for these surly teen years to be over.” She started scooping the rifle parts into their case.

“Oh really? You don’t understand? I find out my mom’s a serial killer–”

“–Assassin!–”

“–and you don’t understand how that could be upsetting!?”

“No, I don’t! I thought you knew all of this. I thought your father–” She suddenly grew very still, and then let out an exasperated hiss. “Oh my god. He didn’t tell you, did he? We agreed he would have The Talk with you! I swear, I’ll kill him!”

William’s eyes widened.

“Figure of speech, honey.”

“So he’s in on it too? You’re both killers for hire?”

“Yes. And don’t look at me like that. I have a newsflash for you: college is expensive. So if you want to be a fish doctor you best get a grip on that attitude, and learn to show some appreciation.” Her watch beeped and she checked something on it. “Okay, now help me finish packing. Looks like Dad’s almost here with our ride.”

William shoved things into bags, huffing each time. Every step of the way he wanted to complain, and every step of the way the argument slipped out of his hands and he remained silent. The world seemed so much bigger today than it had the day before, and nothing was certain anymore.

Soon they heard the staccato chopping of Chet and Dad arriving with the Black Hawk. As they loaded it up and prepared to evac, it occurred to William that maybe this wasn’t actually a normal way for families to travel, that maybe there were signs he’d missed.

You want to be an adult, you gotta pay attention, Mom had said.

He pressed his face against the window and watched Villa Las Estrellas vanish into the darkness of night, watched all of Antarctica recede into black, until only the stars above remained, in all their glory. His world had been flipped around and he felt lost, tired, and confused – par for the course, for a family vacation. All he knew was, just as those distant stars burned hot, so too would he keep the dream in his heart burning: a guiding light, in the dark.