Taller Than The Moon Trascript

[Listen]

[An ax chopping wood; THEME MUSIC plays…]

Host: Christopher Gronlund:

“I want to make one thing perfectly clear: this show is not about lumberjacks…

My name is Christopher Gronlund, and most months I try to share a story. Sometimes the stories contain truths, but most of the time, they’re made up. Sometimes the stories are funny — other times they’re serious. But you have my word about one thing: I will never — EVER — share a story about lumberjacks.

This time, I dig back to what might be the first real short story I ever wrote…and the only story that came to me in a dream.

All right–let’s get to work…

Narrator:

Taller Than The Moon

[Somber music plays…]

I always wanted to be taller than The Moon. “The Moon” was my brother’s nickname, he got it when he was very young, before I was born. My parents were toilet training him and—never one to sit still for any length of time—he ran from the toilet with his diapers down around his ankles, exposing himself to all in the vicinity. My folks had a slew of nicknames for him: “Moonie,” “The Great White Crack,” and “The Moon.” The latter stuck with him and was a nickname he carried all his life. Nobody, not even my parents, called him Adam Stokowski.

I grew up on a flat stretch of hard farmland in Texas. We had a couple two story buildings in town—the bank and the church—but the only truly tall things in town were the clouds of dust rising up from the infertile soil, and my big brother, The Moon.

The Moon was two years my elder and everything I could only hope to one day become. He was as fast as a gazelle, while I did my best to keep a snail’s pace, until finally being confined to a wheelchair. Every girl in town wanted to date my brother, but when I was around, they walked away. It wasn’t my fault that my spine twisted and that I spoke softly. People talked about The Moon long after he left a room; when I left a room, people only laughed. (My hearing wasn’t that bad.)

The Moon was perfect—at least in the eyes of everyone in town. He shined hope on the 251 residents of our hometown. He was my ray of light, someone who always made me feel bigger than I actually was. Maybe that’s why the town looked up to him: he had a knack for making everyone in his presence feel big.

The Moon carried our town to back-to-back state high school football championships—a big thing in Texas, regardless of the size of the school. I never understood the game’s appeal; perhaps if I did, I’d also understand why grown men and women would pile their burdens on a teenager with a football and force him to carry their hopes and dreams on his shoulders, like Atlas. The way we all looked up to him, you’d think—just like the real moon—that he controlled the tides.

The Moon became even more legendary when he landed a football scholarship at Texas A&M University, but things changed when he gave up the chance to play ball to serve in Vietnam. On his first tour, he came back with the Medal of Honor.

The town held a loud parade for him, consisting of the high school band, some Cub Scouts, and the mayor driving around in a convertible. His second tour, he came back with a Purple Heart and an addiction to morphine, which turned to heroin.

Our town fell silent.

Gone was that Prometheus smile, bringing light to all it shined upon. No longer did The Moon make everybody feel big. His depression and addiction put him under a microscope; people spoke of him only in whispers—some said he betrayed them. I wanted to step up and defend him like he did so many times for me, but all I could do was sit back, like everyone else, and watch my brother slide deeper toward an inevitable end.

I’ve read his obituary so many times that I can still recite the damn thing from memory.

November 11, 1970
Services for Adam Stokowski are
scheduled for 10 a.m. Friday at
the First United Methodist Church
on Sycamore St. Adam died
Sunday in his family’s home. He
was 25.

Survivors include Mr. Stokowski’s
father, Benjamin; mother, Carol;
and younger brother, Michael—a law
student at the University of Texas,
in Austin.

I’ve only returned home a few times since finishing college, always for Christmas. I still expect to see my brother when I visit. I expect to hear the backdoor crash open and slam shut, followed by him charging through the kitchen, but this old house died with him. Seven years later, my parents aren’t the same; seven years later, I’m not the same. Perhaps everybody in town was right: maybe in some sick way, The Moon was our only hope.

I wake up on Christmas morning. For a moment, I feel like a kid again. I crawl to The Moon’s bedroom to wake him up so he can help me down the stairs and shake the gifts Santa Claus brought the night before, but his room is silent—it’s been that way since he died, a sick museum for my parents to visit and feel sorry for themselves.

I make my way down the steps, sliding down one at a time on my rear, and I get into my wheelchair at the bottom of the stairs. I don’t go to the living room to check presents, though—Christmas has lost its magic, and my parents will sleep late this morning. I go to the kitchen to get breakfast, instead.

I open the pantry to get some cereal and I see the crude growth chart my parents made to chronicle the growth of my brother and me when we were younger. Our early years are marked off in three month increments on the back of the pantry door. Around our teens, they;re marked off annually. I see The Moon’s markers and compare them to mine. Early on, we grew about the same rate, but when I read: “The Moon – 10 years old – 1955” and I see the corresponding pencil mark, I realize that’s about the time my growth slowed, when I was eight. From age ten, he just grew and grew, while my spine twisted more and more. I was jealous of my brother then, and he must have known because he did everything he could to make me feel special. I remember how he’d pick me up so I could see things on the top shelf. I remember how I told him I’d be taller than him, someday, and how he’d hold me high above his head and say I already was. I can still hear him shouting, “You’re a giant, Mikey—you’re a giant!” as he carried me around the house on his shoulders.

I look at the growth marks on the pantry door and wish I had made eggs, instead. I think about all those years I wanted to be the one everyone looked up to. My little town now sees me as the big-city lawyer who made good, despite all my struggles. In a strange way, I suppose I got my wish: I’m finally taller than The Moon.

What I wouldn’t give to feel small once again…

[Outro Music plays…]

Host: Christopher Gronlund:

A big thank you for listening to Not About Lumberjacks. All music by Ergo Phizmiz and Kai Engel. Visit nolumberjacks.com for information about the show, the voice talent, and the music.

Okay, I know I’ve talked about the post-apocalyptic office story forever. It’s written, but…it got out of hand? I introduced a character along the way and now I feel like I need to add more, but…anyway, I don’t know if I’ll have that ready for next month, so…with all that editing to be done, and with novel stuff taking priority over short fiction, you might get that story about the kid who makes a monster in his bathtub next time. And if that’s the case, it means that I have exhausted all short fiction that I’ve previously written. But then…maybe I might actually edit and put the post-apocalyptic office story together by then. We’ll see…

And really, at this point—as much as I’ve hyped that story—it really needs to live up to at least a couple people’s expectations. So there’s that side of me that’s like, “Eh…I should just keep coming up with excuses like, ‘Oh, it was a beautiful day, so we opened a window and I had the manuscript sitting there and suddenly a turkey vulture came in and flew off with it. Or…’Hey, I finally recorded that story, but uh…I forget to press record, so…I don’t really have time to rerecord it, so here’s this other story.’ Or even just going all out there and being kinda like, ‘Hey, a company I used to work for uh…got a leaked copy of the story somehow and…they think it’s about them, so…this could be a court case that drags out for years.'”

But while chatting with my wife earlier today, I think I did figure the way out of this, so…I do think that maybe next month you’ll hear it. If not, you’ll hear a story called “Booger.” One of those two.

Anyway…Until next time: be mighty, and keep your axes sharp!

[Outro music fades; an ax chopping wood…]