The Tower of Endless Worlds

by Jonathan Moeller

Twenty minutes later Simon pulled into his mother’s driveway and killed the engine.

  He and his mother lived near Cicero. Like his van, the house had seen better days. It had once been a spacious six-bedroom house with a big back porch and a greenhouse. Now paint peeled in profusion from the house’s wooden walls, the roof had developed a sag, and most of the panes of the greenhouse had shattered. The house looked like a wreck more and more every day. Neither Simon nor his mother could afford to fix the place up.

  Simon climbed the broad back porch and looked over the backyard. It stretched downhill in a sharp incline, leveling out before a thick stand of tangled trees. The trees were part of small forest of about twenty acres, surrounded on all sides by suburban development. For some reason, no one had ever built on the land. Why, no one knew. The woods remained untouched as Chicago and its suburbs grew up around them.

  Simon had spent days playing in those woods as a boy. He wished he could hide there now. Though now it wouldn’t be safe. Bodies sometimes turned up among the trees, dumped by drug dealers. He turned away from the forest and unlocked the back door, screwing up his nerve.

  Dirty dishes filled the kitchen sink. He walked through a spacious dining room, flaked paint crunching beneath his shoes. A closed door led to the living room. Simon opened it and coughed as a cloud of cigarette smoke washed over him.

  “Close the door, boy!” Surprise colored his mother’s rusty voice. “You want me to die of heatstroke?”

  “The doctor said you’re not supposed to smoke.” Simon closed the door and squinted through the smoky haze. Maura sat in her recliner, the TV blaring her afternoon soaps. The air conditioner chugged away in its window.

  Maura Wester blew out a smoke ring, ashes falling across her robe. Her gray eyes were watery and unfocused in her narrow face, but they still cut right through Simon. “The doctor is a fresh-faced pencil neck. A lot like you. I’ve outlived two doctors. I’ll outlive him.” She picked up her remote and muted the TV.

  “I don’t care if he’s pencil neck or not,” said Simon. “You shouldn’t be smoking at your age.”

  Maura smirked. “I shouldn’t do a lot of things at my age.”

  Simon reached out, snatched the cigarette from her fingers, and ground it out in the ashtray.

  Maura blinked. “That was rude.”

  Simon sat down on the couch. “I don’t care. It’s a filthy habit. You should have quit years ago.”

  Maura folded gnarled hands on her lap. “You’re quite right. That’s your entire problem, Simon. You’re too smart by half.”

  Simon kicked at the carpet. “It’s not my only damned problem.”

  “Simon!” Maura’s voice cracked like a whip. “Your father didn’t have many rules, but he said no foul language was to be used in this household.”

  Simon looked at the wall. “Sorry, Mom.”

  Maura’s eyes gleamed. “You’re home early.” Strands of yellow-white hair skittered over her face. “Why are you home early, Simon?”

  Simon looked at the floor. “I got fired.”

  There was a long silence. Maura glanced at the TV. “How did this happen?”

  Simon kneaded the arm of the couch. “I lost my temper at a customer over the phone. Mr. Vanderhan threw me out the door.”

  “Simon.” That one word carried more shame, regret, and incrimination than an entire speech. He looked at the floor. For some absurd reason, he felt like crying.

  “It’s not my fault.”

  She flipped through the channels. “Why not?”

  “The customers are idiots. This one woman, her son put a Barbie doll in a toaster and held down the lever until it melted. She wanted a refund!”

  Maura looked at the smoldering cigarette in the ashtray and sighed. “You did the same thing when you were six.”

  “It was with a GI Joe,” said Simon. “And you didn’t call up the company and demand a refund when I did it.”

  “No,” said Maura. “But I was patient with you, wasn’t I? I didn’t scream at you and call you an idiot, did I?”

  Simon flushed. “No.”

  Maura sighed. “What are you going to do now?”

  “I don’t know,” said Simon. “I have classes all tomorrow morning. I’ll go job hunting in the afternoon. Maybe something will turn up.”

  “You could always go back to the gas station,” said Maura.

  “No,” said Simon. “Absolutely not.” He had worked at that gas station and its miserable convenience store during his last year of high school and his first two years of college. He had vowed to never set foot in that building again. “I’ll find something else.”

  “You’re too proud, Simon,” said Maura. “So what if you have to flip burgers for a few years? It’s honest work.”

  “It’s miserable, tedious, and an underpaid waste of time,” Simon said. “And you wouldn’t know what it’s like. You never had a real job.”

  “Whatever, Simon. As if dealing with your father, and then with you, weren’t a full-time job in and of itself.” She reached for her purse and pulled out a twenty dollar bill. “Since you have so much time on your hands, go to the store and get some milk and eggs.”

  “But Mom,” said Simon. “I’ve got at least five hours of homework to get through before tomorrow. I don’t have time to go to the store…”

  “It’s two in the afternoon. You said you wouldn’t be back from work until six. You have ample time, boy.” She thrust the money into his hand. “Go.”

  “Yes, Mom,” said Simon.

  “And hurry back. I don’t want to be here alone.”

  “Why not?” Simon paused halfway to the door.

  “I heard noises in the woods. Someone’s out there, I think,” said Maura. She turned the mute off. A laugh track blared through the living room. “Hooligans, probably.”

  Simon rolled his eyes. “How can you hear anything over the air conditioner and that TV? Besides, why would they come here? We have nothing worth stealing.” Maura ignored him, her attention focused on the TV. Simon went back to the dining room and shut the door, gasping at the heat.

  He went upstairs to his room, sighing in relief as the air-conditioned cool, free of cigarette smoke, washed over him. He shut the door behind him and cranked the air conditioner as high as it would go.

  Simon sat his desk and arranged his work for the evening. He had to continue working on a major paper for the end of the summer semester, not to mention the two hundred pages he had to go through to prepare for class tomorrow. He really didn’t have time to go to the store.

  Nevertheless, he stuffed the money into his pocket and headed downstairs to the driveway.

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