The Stars Will Be There Tomorrow

Living his tenth year since birth, a boy sturdy enough to carry all of his ancestors’ honor and surrounded by his sleeping siblings stares at the stars from the gaps in the roof. They take him away from the truth of it all. They give him the hope that he will change everything for his family. Everything is in those stars.

“Come, deliver these bundles of tortillas and don’t forget to stop by the market for more maize.” The satchel was heavy with the hand-rounded tortillas made by his mother using a small fire pit and fingers to turn and crisp them to perfection. His younger brothers weren’t yet ready to help out around the house and the older ones were married off helping their own families survive. He knew it was a heavy weight but the resounding voice of his father reminding him that la familia es todo (family is everything) kept his shoulders back.

He walked the same streets every day before school delivering the tortillas and cheerfully saying hello to the kids playing futbol. He would pass by the panaderia (bakery) where the owner would wave with a slight stare of curiosity. Finally, after all of the deliveries and still early in the morning he would find his seat in the small room where he would wonder about all of the subjects being taught to him.

He loved school and was, by far, the smartest one there. The teacher knew he didn’t come from much as most of the kids didn’t, but it was his thirst for knowledge that showed off his intelligence. To this boy nothing was play but when class ended, he had to cast school off as if it were a toy.

On a not-so-different day as the rest, the owner of the panaderia hailed him over as the boy was walking to school. He gallantly marched over hoping it was so the owner would share some sweet bread with him.

“Do you like school, boy?”

There was no other answer but “yes!” and he respectfully answered so.

The owner had been watching the boy keep his shoulders back and his smile permeate into all who saw it. He wanted to offer the boy a closer walk to school, work, and studies. This was an opportunity that couldn’t be passed. He could finally stop looking at the stars but study them instead. So, after school, the boy told his mother he had found a way to provide more money and study longer. His mother was tired, worked, and saddened. She wanted to give her son what he wanted but ever since her husband had gone to the city for work, she was pushing herself in too many ways to count.

“Ay, mijo, I am going to the city in a few days to find your father and make a home for us there.” The fit he pitched was silent and forced his shoulders down. He knew he would have to close his books and defeated he walked away. He would have to leave with his family and help provide in the city.

The rooms in the city weren’t much larger than those in the town he came from but at least now his parents slept separately from him and the siblings. His mother had picked up some tortilla deliveries and a new route for him to shine shoes on. The boy loved the way his mother tried to apologize by buying him a new bolero’s (shoe shiner’s) box. With his same smile and shoulders, he walked the new route delivering tortillas and shining shoes. It wasn’t long before those in the city noticed his charisma and attention to detail just like back in the town. He always came back home with the provisions his family needed and he was proud.

On a heated day, as he was finishing the boots of a professional man in the city, a ball rolled over to him. He quickly dribbled it from his foot to his knee and then kicked it straight back to the boys playing in the street. He finished up but instead of walking towards the next stop on his route he took a breath and asked the boys if he could join in. He knew he shouldn’t, but he wouldn’t stay for long. Long turned to longer and the night sky started to show. He quickly gathered his bolero box and ran towards his next few spots but there was no one there to shine shoes for. This time he wouldn’t come home with everything that was asked of him. Ashamed he kept walking and found himself at the edge of a nearby street. If he took a left, he would be on his way home but if he took this right, he would be in what seemed to be a whole different city from the one he was just in.

Tucked in darkness, there was hardly any light and a slight smell of sweat and dirt made his nose wrinkle up. He stepped further into this unknown part of the city which no one would ever find if they weren’t looking for it. He felt a strong grab at his shoulder and turned to see an old woman with dark eyes and white hair pulled back staring at him telling him the rooms on the right are done and need to be cleaned. Out of fear, he followed her demands and found himself opening the door to a room that a woman was slipping out of. The sheets that were supposed to be spread on a cot were curled up at the end of it. There was a chair with some bottles of liquor and cigarettes. The walls were darkened with time rather than the shadows. He felt unsafe but even more so if he didn’t do as the old woman had said.

He started at the bottles, laid them outside the door, then the pillows he placed on the cot and finally he lifted the sheet to pull it tight against the cot. When the sheet unfurled, he heard a small thump. He bent to feel what had fallen from the folds of the sheet and found a little black book. It seemed to be bound with a soft fabric instead of just the pages like his schoolbooks had been. He felt the urge to look up at the stars again. He quickly slipped the book into his pocket and finished up. All the rooms on the right had been cleaned and without knowing the repercussion he told the old woman he had done so. Unexpectedly, she paid him and he left hoping never to return.

His feet were eager to get home, but his hands could only imagine the touch of that book. He stopped right before home and secretly took the book out. As he went to turn the cover to view the first page, the book opened to a page bookmarked by what looked like money. He slammed it shut. If it was what he thought, then it was more money than he had ever seen. He thought to himself that it couldn’t be true, so he opened it again. The red of the bills staring at him as if they were his own blood pouring out on those pages. He shut it again, placed it back in his pocket, and walked home.

He had laid all night dreaming of what he could do for his family with even just one of those bills. On the same route he would always take, he took a breath and opened the little black book again. This time he counted the red-inked bills. He couldn’t believe he was counting past four hundred but then his heart filled with excitement as he counted past five thousand. Images of a book full of stories of the stars zoomed in his head as he counted past twelve thousand. Thoughts of his father and mother resting on a chair with his siblings playing games were burned in his eyes when he reached the last bill that counted twenty thousand. This was more money than he could ever dream of. He wouldn’t have to tote his family’s wealth in a satchel any longer but rather consume all the knowledge he knew was in those stars.

Quickly he gathered it all together, stuffed it back into that little black book, and continued on his way. What would he do today? He thought to himself as he sauntered towards the city prepared for work but thinking play. He did just that. Instead of shining shoes and listening to old-man conversations, he listened out for his name to pass the ball to the open player. He spent the entire morning with the wind in his hair and when the sweat from his brow started to bother him, he invited all of the players to come and share in the tortillas his mother had made. Darkness started creeping back and as all the other players started heading home, he knew it was time to change the life of his family.

He gathered his things and walked the same route he had the day before. Before the edge of the separate city, he heard loud yells and glass crashing. He ran towards the noise and the darkness. In between the walls where he had found his freedom in a little black book, he saw something much more frightening than before. A man, with eyes dark and wide from the fury he was hurling at the women he had tormented, yelled “Si no me regresan el dinero, putas, les traere el infierno a sus patas!” (“If my money isn’t returned, I’ll bring hell right to your door!”)

The boy clutched his pocket, sealed his eyes, and prayed for a different scene when he opened them back up. He opened his eyes and the sight only got worse. The women’s trembling fear was similar to the one he’d had when he lied to his father and he owned up to it only after a problem came of it. His father had told him at that moment, “the only disappointment is that you dared lie to yourself.”

As he started towards the man, he knew his dreams of seeing the stars would come true but not through lies and deception. This man full of anger had used the red bills in the boy’s pocket to trample on women like those he was beating who had no other way out. The boy would find the stars another way. He stepped in front of the woman the blood-boiled man was about to strike again and said “Pegeme a mi! Yo soy su ladron – ellas no sabian nada!” (“Hit me! I stole the money – they didn’t know about it!”).

His cheek burned with pain and he saw the little light in that darkened city go sideways. When he opened his eyes, he saw his mother praying with all her fingers moving around the rosary, his siblings in the distance with confused faces at the sight of their father with his hat at his chest and tears he’d never shed before. He was safe, he was home, and he was with those he needed the most. He looked at all of them and knew that the stars would be there tomorrow.