Space and Spirits by Izo Lopez

         The bar was the universe and we were still stargazing. That is what my best friend Judy called watching Stephen drink solo from across the bustling pub. It was christmas eve, 1960, and my friends and I were watching the school’s brightest but most volatile star.

         “You know I went up to him during the stargazing.” Amelia mentioned. “He was a right prick.”

         “Oh dear, what did he do to you?” Judy asked her, refilling her glass of perry for her.

         I didn’t join the conversation—I was still studying Stephen. He sat alone at the bar, his feet resting on the stool’s little step such that his brown socks showed beneath his trousers. He sat straight and unmoving, his eyes lazy but fixed on probably some imaginary equation floating in the air in front of him. Every so often he would lift his drink with two hands and sip carefully as if he were drinking tea.

         I knew what had happened with Amelia. I had seen that from a distance too. Our class was stargazing up on the dormitory roofs only a few hours before we hit the pub as a class. There were enough telescopes to share around but Stephen had chosen to sit the activity out and instead rested on a blanket on the ground. He still looked up at the night sky though, with the same focused expression he always wore. This is how I always found Stephen—alone in a quiet space of his own while other people orbited busily around him, ignoring the boy who always chose to not take part.

         And then like an asteroid, Amelia broke the serene scene by careening straight towards him. She chattered at him for a bit and then held out her hand. Stephen gave her his school-wide famous do-you-think-I’m-an-idiot icy stare and said—

         “’I suppose you think you’re learning when you giggle at the pretty lights.’ He says.” Amelia finished, growing pink at the cheeks. “All I asked him was if he’d like to come join us at our scope and have an easier time of it.”

         “The nerve of that arrogant bastard. Where does he get off? Just because he’s a bloody genius and better than the rest of us doesn’t mean he can act better than the rest of us.” Molly said, the only one among us drinking beer.

         Judy sighed. “Well Amy you should have known better, really. Everyone knows what he’s like. If only he wasn’t such a git. He’d be dreamy.”

         “Why are the smart ones always gits Judy?” Amelia said as she leaned on Judy’s arm. Already she was tipsy.

         “Because the darling ones are idiots.” Molly polished off her second pint.

         “And the clever nice ones are nancies.” Judy added. She patted Amelia’s head. “There, there, dear. There’s always Danny Greene.”

         Amelia’s face went supernova and Molly snorted into her mug. As my friends bickered over the propriety of the size of Danny’s nose and whether or not he was a full minger or just a half-minger, I continued to watch Stephen.

         Ever since his first day in the university he’d been an icon. Rumor had it that he’d argued with a professor over the last chapters in the textbook. I was in that class though and the truth was much more marvelous. They hadn’t argued but Stephen had raised a point and our professor was so enamored by the thought that he and Stephen basically just had a chat for the rest of the lesson. The things they were talking about went over our heads but the rest of the class was content watching Stephen get into his full swing.

         It was astounding to see a freshman go toe-to-toe with the college’s master of astrophysics but it was more remarkable still to see Stephen talk science with a peer. He lit up like the sun and the rest of us could feel his intelligence emanating from him like radiation. I didn’t know it then but such a display would only occur once in a blue moon when the stars were aligned just right because for the rest of the year Stephen would just be the quiet boy who sat at the back of the room and kept to himself.

         Still, the stories spread and his fame increased. He was an enigma—on the one hand utterly brilliant and on the other hand aggressively taciturn. They called him Einstein but only because they could only speak of him through a label. They called him a black hole too because he sucked all the joy out of the space around him. He had no friends and wandered the school grounds alone, casually adrift in space with no trajectory, more concerned with whatever thought was in his head than where he was actually going.

         And he always wore the same expression when he was thinking, whether it was in class, on campus, or in that pub. He stared into his cup wih half-lidded eyes, unmoving and perfectly stoic. It wasn’t just the expression of a thinking man—it was the look of someone who took imagining seriously.

         “Jane. Jane? Jane!” Judy snapped me out of my reverie. “You’re not drunk already are you?”

         I shook my head. I’d barely touched my cup of sparkling cider and it wasn’t even alcoholic.

         “Well anyway, Amy is. As usual. We have to get her back into her room or she’ll miss her tram tomorrow.” Judy said while she kept trying to prop Amelia back upright in her seat. “And I won’t envy her even if she catches it. A hangover on a train is a terrible thing.”

“I’ve never had a hangover.” Molly mused.

         “That’s because you’ve never been drunk Molly dear, and that’s because you’ve got the fortitude of two sailors.” Judy said. She’d given up and now Amelia was just draped over her shoulders like a shawl.

         “And I cuss like one too.” Molly grinned. She leaned over and tipped Amelia easily onto her shoulders instead and began shuffling out of the booth with our drunk friend in tow.

         “Right then. Let’s go Jane.” Judy said, gathering up Amelia’s coat and purse for her.

         I hesitated. Judy, my best friend since we were children, saw my face and knew what I was thinking. She glanced at me, and then in the direction I’d been staring at all evening.

         “What. Honestly. Jane that’s suicide.” Judy said but with a hint of a smirk. She knew my feelings expertly.

         I shrugged. It was something I’d decided to do since we were up on that roof.

         “Okay. Courage, dear, and good luck then. Don’t say I didn’t warn you though.” Judy said as she hugged me goodbye for the night. “C’mon Moll, let’s go.”

         “What about Jane?” Molly said. She had Amelia properly slung over her shoulder now like a shot deer and it would have been a sight if half the room were not already completely arsed in their drinks. The pub had suddenly changed from a galaxy of cozy people into an asteroid belt of drunks wobbling about and on the far side was Stephen, calm and cold.

         “She’ll tell us everything later, won’t you Jane? Come on now, my parents sent me some wine and I have it stashed in the dormitory. Jane will be fine. She’s a bit mental but she’ll be fine.” Judy ushered Molly out and sent me back a last wink over her shoulder.

         I was suddenly alone in the whirling chaos and I wasn’t so sure anymore. With quiet people though, the crazier and more daring the notion, the more resovled we are to do it in the end. I stood up and made my way to the bar.

         I tiptoed my way through constellations of sweaty, beer-odoured groups before I made it to the bar and it was like fighting your way through a storm and then arriving at the eye. Suddenly there was space, and a modicum of quiet ahead of me. Stephen sat alone at the bar and his prescence had somehow cleared a ring of peace around him. I found him as I always found him—the star of his own little system, singular in a well of empty space and oblivious to all that swirled around him.

         I took a deep breath and sat on the stool next to him. There was a long minute of stillness before he looked up at me with cool eyes.

         “You’re that girl’s friend. I’m not going to apologize because she was intruding on my personal space much like you are now.” He spoke calmly, without any spite but without any friendliness either. It was a sentence that was no more than an equation of words to him.

I felt my face flush but I held his gaze. I would have been an idiot not to expect him to be exactly as he always was, so I was prepared. My heart was in my throat but my mind was clear and I knew I had to keep calm if I had any chance at all.

         He stared at me long and intently before breaking away first and taking another sip, holding his cup in both hands. “Okay, I’m sorry. Well, not actually but I should at least say it, right? I’m not sorry though, and that’s the truth.”

         He swirled his drink. It was hard cider, bubbly like mine but alcoholic, and he swirled it like I did. I knew why he swirled it. He wanted the bubbles to float around the glass because they looked like stars in a whirlpool of space. That was why I would swirl my drink. I’d seen him do it several times that evening and each time he did it I was more convinced that I should, would approach him before the night was over.

         “It’s not her fault she’s regular. And it’s not my fault I’m intelligent. Some people they just—“ He looked up at me, and I saw that his eyes were blue and tired. “They talk a lot and point at things a lot but they’d learn so much more if they would just sit down, look, and think. Maybe I just didn’t want to get up. You can tell your friend that if that will make her feel better. I wasn’t trying to be cruel. Not really.”

         It was my turn to break gaze. I sipped my cider and felt the sharp sweetness of it roll over my tongue. I took my time. This was a game of attrition. It was a game I’d played before and lost to Judy and we had become fast friends. I was nervous but I knew what I was doing. Loners are all the same, really.

         Stephen began to fidget. It was the first time i’d ever seen him be anything more than absolutely stoic. His finger lightly tapped the side of his cup. He knee began to bounce but then it looked as if his foot might slip off of the stool. Oddly, he caught his thigh with a hand on his trouser leg. He saw that I noticed.

         “It’s not my fault I’m intelligent.” He said at last. “I can’t talk to people because you people don’t think like I do. You don’t see things the way I do. And it’s not your fault. I’m not trying to be a braggy twat alright? I’m just saying. I’m different. And that makes it hard. And it’s no one’s fault.”

         He dug in deep into his drink. He picked his cup up with one hand and on the way back down it slipped and thudded back onto the bartop, a little bit of the drink sloshing over the edge. His hand was left in the space above his glass, trembling ever so slightly. He watched his hand for a silent minute and then glared at it suddenly. Stephen spoke, and the words spilled out of him.

         “It’s not easy being this smart. And i know that sounds like such a wanky thing to say but it’s true. I am fairly clever and I’m proud of it. It sets me apart. It sets me apart too much. Do you have any clue at all what it’s like to have no peers? Nobody to talk to who likes to think, but not in the common way but in the right way? Sitting down and being quiet—that’s what I do, and that’s who I am and some people they just don’t get that. And I wish someone would. I don’t want to be a black hole- that’s what they call me right? But I am, that’s exactly what I am and i don’t radiate heat I only take it away. Don’t be near me because I’m cold, I’m so bloody cold and—“

         I had reached out and steadied his shaking hand. He drew it away and stared wide-eyed at me with shock. All at once his eyes flashed through an entire spectrum of emotion—surprise, anger, shame, confusion. Then the power of his mind reasserted itself and his face was once again empty. Casually he brough the heel of his palm up to his cheeks and felt the wetness there.

         “Hm. It would seem I am drunk.” He stated matter-of-factly.

         A ruckus spread around the room and I was terrified for a moment that it was because of Stephen’s outburst but nobody had even noticed our conversation. It was almost midnight and people were preparing to toast christmas day. Patrons were standing up with drinks in hand and checking around for the watch that was most advanced.

         While the people in the pub got excited Stephen looked at me with eyes as empty as deep space and I could not tell what he was thinking. I stayed in my seat as he did and looked into my cup. The fizz was nearly gone. I swirled it slowly one last time before finishing it off.

         I looked up at Stephen and he had an oddly curious look on his face and a gaze that shifted from my empty cup to me. People were lifting their mugs and tankards and glasses into the air and greeting each other happy holidays because it was past midnight. I smiled and lifted my empty glass a bit in a small toast before setting it back down. Stephen, stunned, tried to do the same but he only used one hand and it looked like the glass would slip again.
         I caught it with my other hand by reflex and together we held up the glass between us. I looked into his eyes and instead of an empty abyss I saw something else. As the people cheered in that tiny Oxford pub, the bubbles in the cider swirled along with all the billions of planets and stars that whirled in chorus around an empty but bright universe the center of which was two stools occupied by quiet people. In Stephen’s eyes I saw past the icy darkness of space and saw bright galaxies of thought.

         “Happy christmas, Stephen. My name is Jane.”