As a child, I lingered in the yard after humid darkness fell and the stars came out. I hid in the bank of forsythia with my dog. Sometimes I perched on the precarious vault of our roof alongside our television antenna. The stars shimmered in the heat, and I would pull my knees to my chin in frank admiration and awe for their size and distance.
In the country, desolate though I was, I felt most peaceful when completely alone. I never remember having a bedtime like other children. I had no siblings close to my ever difficult age. I had my dog, many books, and The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. I worshiped Johnnny Carson.
In the summer, I would come in when I heard his familiar theme song drifting from my mother's window. She never missed his monologues, but I never heard her laugh. I just recently explained to her Dolly Parton's visit on the panel portion. She sat in a a bright blue velvet chair, chewed ice cubes, and chain smoked Silva Thins with a look of complete emotional forfeit. She smelled of White Shoulders and ashtrays when I kissed her drowsy cheek good night.
I watched Don Rickles, Jonathan Winters, Bob Newhart, then later Robin Williams and Jerry Seinfeld. I watched Roseanne Barr for the first time with Johnny. I watched Ellen Degeneres and Stephen Wright for the first time with Johnny.
Mom stopped calling for me to come in most times when I was eight, satisfied instead to turn up the volume during Tonight. She knew I could be flushed out like a quail with a blare of trumpets and a flourish of Technicolor curtains on the screen.
One summer, I moved all our outdoor furniture around in the yard to simulate my private outdoor living room, centered around my mother's bedroom window. I could sit in a faded lounge chair beneath a sky hung with stars, then watch my hero's dry, witty exchanges and faux golf swings. We were undisturbed by my parents' shouts or, worse, wretched silences. I sometimes mixed make-believe cocktails of grapefruit juice and horsd'ouvres of dill pickles, the only party food my mother kept on hand.
Over dirty feet propped on a pretend coffee table, I laughed at Johnny's mature humor, most of which I got later after much thought -- and then I belly laughed. Many nights I slept right there, and I woke to mornings covered with dew and bug bites.
When Johnny went off the air, I lay in the yard and cried. I was 21 years too old. I was too big to climb onto the roof or fit into the shrubbery, and my mother had cable by then. My dog was buried in someone else's backyard and so was a piece of me. Today, I am astonished when I notice stars at all.
Johnny and his shows molder in a vault somewhere. I sit inside on summer nights, chain smoke and pray for his return.
