There is no such thing as lunar panels.

Des shoved the 20-inch pizza box of the three smiling Petrini brothers into Molly’s outstretched hands and blurted, “Lunar panels!” After a beat, she asked, “Looney panels? Have you been listening to one of those right-wing talk stations?” “No, no, no. LUNAR panels. Do you get it? Everyone is selling solar panels—along with garage doors—but nobody is selling lunar panels.” “Des, that’s because there is no such thing as lunar panels,” Molly said.

THE MOON MAN BY JAY BERMAN 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 79

Desmond Jones was vaguely unhappy about his situation. He earned $95,000 a year as manager of Hendersons Furnishings, an upscale store in La Cumbre Plaza in Santa Barbara, California. A six-figure income was within reach, but that was still not enough to own a home in the city in which he worked. He lived with his wife, Molly, and children, Vera and Dave, 15 miles southeast, in Carpinteria, where the housing was marginally more affordable. In Santa Barbara, even a house considered a tear-down listed for $1.2 million. Their house, a modest three-bedroom about 50 years old, had cost them $650,000 five years ago.

Des was also troubled slightly that Hendersons had no apostrophe. Not in its signage, in its advertising, its sales invoices, or even on his business card. But he shrugged off the apostrophe with the knowledge that no Henderson had been affiliated with the store in 40 years. It was owned by a conglomerate of doctors, attorneys, and financial types based in San Francisco.

Des’s customers at Hendersons were living in Santa Barbara and driving Lexuses and Teslas. One had devised a more economical way of packaging frozen fish. Another, an advertising copywriter, had come up with the nationally famous radio slogan “tasty, tasty, tasty” for a brand of pumpernickel bread that had put him in a Lexus LC.

Des needed an idea to improve his situation but he had no idea what that idea might be. And he knew nothing about frozen fish or pumpernickel bread.

Driving home after closing the store Des listened to KTYD, a classic rock station. Des was 42 and he heard nothing in post-modern pop music that appealed to him as much as the Beatles, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, and the Eagles. But what didn’t appeal to him was the barrage of ads for mattress stores, car dealers, DUI attorneys, and solar panels.

The solar panels especially troubled him. If 10 companies in, say, 200 US cities sold 100 solar panels a year, that added up to 200,000, but was that enough to solve the world’s energy crisis? He hadn’t thought it through but it troubled him more than the missing apostrophe in Hendersons.

KTYD was playing Bob Seger’s Shame on the Moon. Seger had just reached the line “Oh, blame it on midnight, ooh, shame on the moon…” Des looked up to the sky as he drove west on Mission Street toward Highway 101 and saw the full moon, shining through the layer of fog that crept in from the ocean. “Shame on the moon? Shame on me,” he sang out loud karaoke-style.

Molly asked him to pick up a pizza at Petrini’s, which had an apostrophe, pineapple and anchovies, her favorite because Des, Vera, and Dave scraped off all the pineapple and anchovies for her while they demolished the pepperoni, olives, and mushrooms.

Des shoved the 20-inch pizza box of the three smiling Petrini brothers into Molly’s outstretched hands and blurted, “Lunar panels!”

After a beat, she asked, “Looney panels? Have you been listening to one of those right-wing talk stations?”

“No, no, no. LUNAR panels. Do you get it? Everyone is selling solar panels—along with garage doors—but nobody is selling lunar panels.” He nearly told her Bob Seger had given him the idea but thought better of it.

“Des, that’s because there is no such thing as lunar panels,” Molly said.

“Exactly. That’s my point,” he said, breathlessly. “And there was no such thing as light bulbs until Westinghouse.”

“Thomas Edison, Edison invented the light bulb.”

“Yes,” Des said. “I’ll be the Westinghouse of lunar panels.”