Guilt made him do it. Naturally.
He was two thousand miles and change away from his mother during the holiday. She called to remind him of this at least twice a day starting the day after Thanksgiving.
Naturally, he had told her it was nothing personal, nothing to do with her; he just needed some time away from anyone that would remind him of his father. The last year had been a disaster of substance abuse and self-loathing, and while a whole lot of that remained, it was even worse when he would see his mother absently twist her wedding band, or his sister raise her eyebrows in the same way their father did, or any of the hundreds of millions of symbols and whispers that a person had existed on this Earth and was no longer there.
She had cried. A lot. And then begged him to reconsider, citing her broken heart and her loneliness and her need to see her son over Hanukkah, and how could he do this to her after everything she did for him, all the sacrifices she had made, and he had to go and quit his job—his very prestigious, rewarding job-and become nothing more than a surf bum in California, the hotbed of sin. And vegetarians.
He let her carry on for about ten minutes before reminding her that she also had two daughters, both of whom lived within spitting distance, and maybe she should get to know them for a change. She didn't have a chance to respond before he ended the call.
The guilt started to eat at him the moment he hung up, but he tried to push it aside and remember what his therapist said about guilt: that it could be used as a way of control, and the only person allowed to control his emotions was himself. Zach put his bare feet up on the railing of his deck and watched the sun blur into a wash of pink and gold as it touched and then sank over the edge of the ocean.
Now would be the time to light the first candle, but the only thing he had in his house that was made of wax was meant to be rubbed over his surfboard. Not to be discouraged, he busted out a few Zig Zags and rolled a joint the size of his pinky finger, and fired it up to commemorate the occasion.
His phone beeped with a text; he coughed out a cloud and opened the message. It was from Darien. Happy Jewish holiday. Be in town this wkend c u then.
Zach grinned to himself and took another hit. The lull of the waves breaking against the shore seemed to ease the tension out of his neck; he rubbed the back of it absently as he watched the sky darken to indigo. The stars came out, and a tiny sliver of moon illuminated the water. Inside of his house, his iPod hit "Night Nurse" in its rotation.
It was then that he had his epiphany.
He realized that now, at this moment, everything in the world suddenly made sense. Zach knew that he was meant to be here, on his deck, looking at the ocean and smoking a J, and nothing he had experienced in his short life could add up to this.
He was on his own.
There was no bottom line to watch, no client to make obscenely wealthy, no little people to screw over. His mother was thousands of miles away. He had no girlfriend or wife to answer to, no kids to provide for, no responsibility for anyone's happiness but his own. Hell, he didn't even have to pass his joint over to anyone. He could sit out here all night and watch the stars move across the sky, and get lost in his own dreams, which had been suppressed for so long that he had to train his mind to recognize and grasp onto them.
There was something he wanted to do. He picked up his phone again, searched through the numbers until he found the one he wanted, and connected the call. Thalia had been a great lay: all ferocious hands, wild hair, and no strings attached, but more importantly, she was very good at her job. A design was in his inbox within hours, and his skin was under assault the next day.
Darien was the first one to see it when he came in that weekend.
"Huh," was all he muttered. "Thought you guys weren't supposed to get those."
Zach shrugged and cracked open a homebrew for his friend. The back of his neck, now sporting a blue and black Magen David, itched with a million fiery pinpricks of hell. "Gotta represent. Cheers."
A few months later, the stylized star was just one of many.