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Pee-Wee doesn’t follow his morning routine. He misses the breakfast buffet, and the blueberry pancakes with whipped cream and birthday candles waiting. Pee-Wee doesn’t make it to his convertible either, leaving his neighbors to find their own morning apples.
He gets to the roof, about to hit his dismount skis, when he’s distracted by four flying cars circling his backyard. He gets a wave and a “Happy birthday, Pee-Wee!” from Penny King. Hoots follow from her fellow sky-drivers. They look and sound an awful lot like Freckles, Pepper, and his favorite - the only other Pee-Wee he’s ever known.
Cables dangle from their flying vehicles with big metal hooks on the ends. No doubt the source of the perfect tree house now erected in his backyard. The new structure provides shade to his HO-187 miniature of Fairville.
Startled, astonished, Pee-Wee misses his dismount. His wooden skis plant front-first in the yard, and he wobbles a few times before falling out to the grass. Penny and company catcall his stumble. Their off-key rendition of Happy Birthday fades into the clouds.
The tree house is perfect. It’s an exact replica of the one he always dreamed of building before its vision came to life on a rooftop in New York City. Which means this tree house is also an exact replica of the one above Joe’s penthouse. The place where they spent the final hours of Joe’s birthday. Forehead-to-forehead, clanking Root Beer Barrels in celebration.
A wood ladder sits against the base of the tree. Pee-Wee climbs it so fast, it’s a wonder his sneakers don’t leave scorch marks on the rungs. The inside of the tree house is a perfect copy. It is a cozy space meant for one but even better with two, ceiling boards meeting in a point overhead. White string lights warm the space. Only one detail is different, and Pee-Wee shrieks for joy. In a corner sits a gumball machine filled with Root Beer Barrels. A smaller version of the life size model in Joe’s bedroom.
A piece of paper sits in the center of the floor. Pee-Wee scoops it up. The top of the note greets him with a request: (Smell Me). Pee-Wee does, and it’s wonderful. Spicy and musky, the smell of Joe hugging his waist before they set off on his motorcycle. “Cool,” Pee-Wee says, because everything Joe does is cool. Sometimes double or triple cool. But at least one cool, always.
The note continues as follows:
To my best friend in the whole wide world:
It’s your special day, Pee-Wee. I could never give you anything to match the gift you gave me for my birthday. Showing up like that, living a little and finding your way. I hope you like your present. I made it by hand, an exact copy of the one in New York. When you’re in here, you’ll always be with me, and I’ll be with you too.
Check the Root Beer Barrel dispenser, I got you one more thing.
Happy birthday, brother. Try the tree house tonight. We’ll be looking at the same stars.
Love,
Joe
Pee-Wee scrambles to reach the candy dispenser. Behind the metal lid, Pee-Wee doesn’t find candy. The mouth of the dispenser has two toy figures inside, each the length of one knuckle of a finger. He pinches them out and holds them up for review. In seconds, he’s squealing again. It’s a little figure him! And a little figure Joe!
Mini Pee-Wee is perfect in his gray suit and red bow tie, and Mini Joe is the coolest thing ever. Jeans, leather jacket, biker boots; it even captures that perfect wave to his black hair. Mini Joe and Pee-Wee can have adventures around Mini Fairville even when Joe has to be on the road. Mini Joe can pick him up at the diner, and they can stroll past the library. Mini Pee-Wee can perform solo for him if the Renegades are busy. They can pluck their own apples from Mrs. Cunningham’s tree. And at night, they can retire to their own Mini Tree House in the backyard.
It’s wonderful. The best gift ever! Only second to what would be the bestest of the best - if Joe himself were here to celebrate his birthday.
But that’s selfish and a little unfair. So many people love Joe, Pee-Wee needs to let them love him too. Pee-Wee has a tree house, Root Beer Barrels, and a note from Joe signed with “love.” What a good birthday. The most wonderful birthday ever.
Pee-Wee hugs the note to his chest and tries to make the happy feelings outweigh the sad.
***
Pee-Wee’s birthday eve is a lonely affair. Fairville tries to liven things up. Dan delivers Pee-Wee a whole batch of homemade chocolate ice cream from the diner. Beverly tries to host a book club meeting in Pee-Wee’s yard. (He shuts that one down quickly. “I’m going to let you let me run from this one, ok?”)
Even an offer to put on the first Renegades performance in a year can’t entice Pee-Wee to join the crowd.
Eventually, Fairville takes off on a street parade in his honor. The sound of their hollers fades down the road. They’ve got balloons, confetti poppers, and gray party hats topped with red bow ties. By Fairville standards, it’s the party of the year! Any other time, Pee-Wee would have been marching down Main Street with them in a polished pair of shoes.
But Pee-Wee’s seen what a true birthday is like now. Birthdays are about self-discovery. They’re about almost dying many times and falling down wells in big cities. But most important, they’re about celebrating with the people most important to you. And as great as the people of Fairville are, as much as they mean to him, they’re not Pee-Wee’s special someone. His best friend. His primo amigo. The only guy who could make getting a year older feel cooler than cool.
Joe said Pee-Wee would see the same stars from his new tree house. So instead of joining the party, Pee-Wee dresses for bed in a long white nightgown and matching white cap. Properly dressed, he climbs the wooden ladder into the tree house. Rolling on his back, he can poke his head out the open doorway and peer through tree branches at the stars overhead.
It’s a cloudless sky tonight, and the stars are out in force. They twinkle like a spread of diamonds, and Pee-Wee reaches up and pretends to pluck a few down. He wonders if these are the exact stars Joe is looking at right now. It’s more likely that Joe is finishing up a photo shoot for a fancy cologne sure to make Pee-Wee mouse-sneeze a lot. But Pee-Wee chooses to believe that Joe is up in his tree house right now. He’s looking at these same stars. They’re celebrating his birthday together.
“Room up there for one more?”
Pee-Wee’s face scrunches. “You’re supposed to be in your tree house looking up at the same- wait, huh?”
He flips over to his belly. On the grass in front of the tree is Joe. He’s wearing the same white nightgown and cap as Pee-Wee, with a leather jacket slung over his shoulder. The nightgown makes perfect sense - Pee-Wee did get him a matching set for Christmas. What doesn’t make sense is how or why Joe is here.
“Yeah, I know. I thought the whole 'same stars' thing was nice, but then I thought, you know what would be nicer? If you and me got to look up at the same stars from the same tree house.” Joe smiles and shrugs a hopeful shoulder. “What do you say, buddy? Room for one more?”
“There’s as many rooms as you want!” Pee-Wee enthuses, despite bonking his head on the low ceiling from sitting up too fast.
Joe climbs up to join him - one handed, the other still holding the leather jacket slung over his shoulder. Pee-Wee upgrades him to quadruple cool, and he scoots to the side so Joe has room to join him on the landing.
Joe sits beside him, legs dangling off the side of the tree house. He looks up towards the sky. “Sure is a nice view, isn’t it?”
Watching him, smiling, Pee-Wee answers, “Best birthday view ever. Oh!” He crawls on all fours to the other side of the tree house. “I forgot to tell you. My other present, I love them too.” He returns with their two mini figures.
“Oh yeah!” Joe takes his own figure and turns it between his fingers, admiring. “They came out pretty good, didn’t they? I had them remake yours three times. They kept getting the gray of the suit wrong. I gave them pictures and everything. Unbelievable.”
“I love them,” Pee-Wee says, holding his mini-me aloft. The figures inch closer, urged by pinched hands, until their little plastic faces meet. Their pointy toy noses rub together with a click-clack of contact.
“Like the real thing,” Joe observes. He eases in too, radiating wonderful and smelling like motorcycles and candy. Pee-Wee folds in like a magnet pull. In the middle, their noses rub together, a soft bump of contact.
“Almost,” Pee-Wee agrees, only he decides to live a little more. To tip his head and peck a quick kiss to Joe’s lips.
Joe looks at him, and Pee-Wee looks back, hoping and dreading and stomach fluttering all at once.
Then Joe smiles a big, sweet grin and tosses his jacket over Pee-Wee’s shoulders. Pee-Wee isn’t cold, but he also isn’t about to take the jacket off for anything. Shoulder to shoulder, they tip their heads against each other and look up at the stars.
“Anything you want to wish for, Pee-Wee?” Joe asks. “Something special for your birthday?”
Pee-Wee doesn’t hesitate. “I have it all right here.”