Functional is Overrated
Spring Break had finally arrived. All throughout campus students were hastily packing up their dorms in preparation for their customary return trip home. The air was filled with the buzz of students discussing vacation plans, which finals they knew they had failed and the classes they were going to take during the spring semester. The university I attended had a policy where no students were to live on campus through the duration of Spring Break. While some of my fellow dorm-mates thought the policy to be unfair, I had no gripes about it.
As I emptied out the personal trash bin I kept beside my desk, which mainly consisted of Top Roman packages, Hot Pocket sleeves and Tootsie Pop wrappers, I imagined the home cooked meals I would soon be sinking my teeth into. I could already taste the hickory smoked flavor of my father’s (not so) world-famous barbeque rips and my mother’s sweet, but not too sweet, homemade cherry pie. Meanwhile, folding the bed sheets that I usually kept crumbled up on the floor only reminded me that I would soon be waking up every morning on my air-foam mattresses that supported me like a cloud, as opposed to the wire-frame ones that the university provided us – they were only slightly more comfortable than what I imagined prison mattresses felt like. Needless to say, I was downright elated to be returning home
My friend Joe had been generous enough to offer to drive me home, and once we had crammed our luggage into his little Honda Hatchback 4-door, we were off.
The first half of the trip went by rather quickly. Joe and I spent most of the time debating whether he was wasting his time pursuing a philosophy major or not and whether my persuading him to seek a different career path was merely my attempt to arbitrarily control his life following the Socratic-Plutonic principle of Paternalism (his words, not mine). All the while, Coldplay trickled through the stereo system, adding a pleasant ambiance to our debate.
The last two hours of our voyage, however, seemed to painstakingly inch by. The conversation had been reduced to a lull and the once vibrant musings of Chris Martin were now tired and annoying to my impatient ears. At one point, I pulled down the passenger-side sun visor and studied my reflection in the mirror attached to the underside. Finals had really taken their toll on me. I could count the hours of sleep I had gotten in the past week on two hands, the drooping bags tucked under my eyes were proof of that. I rubbed and pulled, trying to make them conform back into the natural contours of my skin, but to no avail.
Joe stole a glance at me and let out a chuckle.
“You look like crap,” he said.
“Thanks, I hadn’t noticed,” I returned sarcastically.
“Why don’t you get some sleep? I’m sure you can find a pillow somewhere in the back.”
I heeded his advice and scrounged around in the backseat, amongst our backpacks and laundry bags full of clothes we had not washed in months, until I found a green neck pillow in the shape of a horse-shoe. I lazily reclined my seat as far back as possible, which wasn’t very far due to a travelling case wedged underneath it, and closed my eyes. My conscious floated in a nearly-empty void. Time to time, it would come into contact with a memory or thought, but for the most part, my mind remained clear of all distractions.
I had not been asleep for more than thirty minutes before I was crudely awakened by two ticklish vibrations, in quick succession, erupting from my jean pocket. Without sitting up, I reached into my pocket and pulled out my cell phone. Peering at the screen through unfocused eyes, I saw that I had received a text from my friend Kayleen.
It read, “Are you excited for the field trip?”
I gave my phone a confused stare before texting back, “What field trip?” Although my memory was a bit hazy at that moment, I was still rather certain I had no idea what she was talking about.
My phone buzzed again a moment later.
“The field trip for our marine bio class. Did you not hear about it? We’re leaving this Tuesday and coming back on Saturday morning. It’s mandatory, but it should be fun. We’re gonna be on a boat!”
Kayleen and I had both signed up for the same Marine Biology class for spring semester. We were both majoring in Agriculture and it had been listed as one of the pre-requisites. I was now beginning to regret my enrollment in that class.
“Today is Saturday,” I thought to myself. “That only gives me three days to spend with my family before I leave and then another two after I come back. That isn’t nearly enough time!”
A string of curses flowed from my month and I punched my thigh in frustration.
“Something the matter?” asked Joe.
“No, it’s nothing,” I lied, massaging the bruise I had just made on my thigh.
“Doesn’t sound like nothing.”
“I’m fine, don’t worry. I’m gonna try to sleep, can you wake me up when we get into town?”
“No prob.”
Despite having had the extra hour of sleep and the fact that I had finally arrived in my hometown, I still woke up in a bitter mood. I had not seen my parents in months – phone calls and e-mails had been our main source of communication. The idea of spending all Spring Break with them at home was what had kept me sane through the countless hours of studying and test taking during Final’s Week. To only be able to spend such little time with them felt bittersweet, as if Christmas had come early, but all that I had received from Santa was a fat chunk of coal.
“Well look at that, I bet that’s a sight for sore eyes,” remarked Joe. Ever since he had woken me up, I had just been resting my forehead on the cold window-pane and staring at the road whiz by in silent turmoil. I had not noticed that we had already entered my neighborhood and had made our way up the winding hill that lead to my driveway.
When I turned my head to see what Joe had called attention to, my sour disposition dissipated immediately at the familiar sight before me. Standing only one story tall and sitting on a measly one-half acre, my house was certainly one of the smallest in the area, but I did not care. It had more charm than any other in the area. The bright green trim, Christmas lights that had not been removed in years and numerous bird feeders that hung from the roof were all as I remembered. Two twin cedars stood directly adjacent to the house, overshadowing it, with a weathering treehouse sitting among the branches. The memories of sitting in that treehouse for hours, pondering life, love and which girl was the cutest in school, all came flooding back to me.
What really solidified my return for me, however, was a Boston Terrier named Scotty, who was sitting on the porch, staring at the car in curious wonderment. No matter if I was gone for an hour or a year, he was always there to greet me on my arrival, tail wagging like a metronome set to Allegro. So when he came charging down the gravel driveway at the sight of me exiting the car and proceeded to jump all over me, as if to tackle me to the ground, I knew that I had returned home.
The first two days of my Spring Break flew by without concern. I was surprised at how quickly I adapted to life at home. Although, to be honest, it was not that hard to get accustomed to going to bed at two in the morning and waking up at well past noon.
When Monday morning finally rolled around, I woke up to find my mother washing dishes in the kitchen. My parents had been doing their darndest to make my stay as comfortable as possible, which involved my mother continuously cleaning the house. Watching her was like watching the Road Runner.
One moment she would be washing the dishes, then I would blink and she’d be in the laundry room loading the washer, blink again and she’d be in the living room dusting the television. I tried to lessen her load by helping her with the chores, but I simply could not keep up. She was a one-woman powerhouse when it came to keeping the house in order.
“Mom, calm down. Relax a bit. The house is clean enough,” I said
“The house is a mess. I didn’t want you to see it like this,” she responded, a hint of a German-Polish accent slipping into her voice.
My mom had lived most of her childhood on the border between Germany and Poland, and although he had been living in America for the past thirty-plus years, she still retained her delightful accent. In my eyes, my mom, with her accent, petite stature and short, boyish, brown hair, was the most adorable thing standing on two legs.
“Maybe if your father would help more around the house, it wouldn’t be such a pigsty.”
If there was ever a person who was the complete opposite from my mother, it was my father. While she was a short and energized German woman, he was a tall, hefty and languid red-blooded American. As she was running herself into a frenzy, either at her job as a hotel maid or at home, he was in his office studying his computer monitor. My dad owned and operated his own small business making websites for various businesses all over the Pacific Northwest. He spent the majority of his time editing and maintaining dozens of websites at a time.
However, to celebrate and show that he was indeed happy to have me back at home, he had treated my mother and me to an expensive dinner at my favorite Chinese restaurant the
same night I returned. It was on that night that I realized how much I had missed spending time with my family – in spite of all their quirks and idiosyncrasies.
After I finally convinced my mom to take a break from her futile attempts to make the house spotless, I settled into the orange armchair that we kept in the living room to check my e-mail, as was my normal routine; the squeak of the worn-out springs came as a comfort to me. As I scanned through my list of newly arrived messages, I came across one that made my heart sink.
What to bring on the Field Trip, the title read.
“Crap, crap crap,” I said under my breath. Between hanging my friends that I had not seen in months and sleeping, the field trip had fleeted from my memory. The same old acrid feelings I had felt before began to well up. However, I took a deep breath and sighed them all away. Although the prospect of spending that whole day packing caused me some frustration, there was nothing I could do about it.
“Might as well just man up and deal with it,” I thought to myself. I clicked on the e-mail tab and began scanning through the list of things I would need to pack.
Rain coat. Check.
Flash light. Check.
Wool socks. Check.
Pen and paper. Check and check.
Rain boots. Uh-oh.
Although I lived in a state infamous for its rain, I had never actually broken down and gotten a pair of rain boots. I never had need for them. If I ever saw a puddle or pool of stagnant water, I avoided it, simple as that. But it was on the list and I did not want to show up without them, just in case. So I did what I always did whenever I needed something.
“Mom!” I shouted
“Yeah?” I heard a voice shout from the other room.
“I need to get some rain boots, can I borrow the car?”
My mom entered the room with a look of confusion.
“Rain boots? It’s sixty degrees outside. What do you need rain boots for?”
“For a field trip I’m going on tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow!?”
“Yeah, I’ll be back Saturday morning.”
“Saturday morning!? That’s four days. Why didn’t you say anything earlier?”
“I forgot,” I said with an innocent smile. My mom merely rolled her eyes.
“Yeah, alright. Tell you what, I’ll come with you. I need to get something from AutoZone for my car. How much do the boots cost?”
I knew my mom well enough to know that whenever she asked what the price of something was, it implied she was going to buy them for me.
“No, mom, it’s alright. I can buy them myself.”
“I don’t want you spending your money on stupid things like rain boots, I’ll buy them. Besides, if it’s for your schooling, I can deduct it from my taxes,” she said, rather proud of herself for knowing about such a tax loop-hole.
She was always spoiling me. To her, I would always be her “pitchounet” (French for “cute little boy”). I knew there would be no debating with her, so I relented.
“Thanks mom,” I said with a smile.
“It’s no problem” she reassured, giving me a warm smile of her own. “Let me just tell your father where we’re off to and then we can go.”
As she went to my dad’s office to tell him our plans, I fetched my black and white canvas Converse from the door. But when I plopped myself on the couch in the living room to tie my shoes, I got distracted by the television. While away at college, I did not get many opportunities to watch T.V. and I had forgotten how easily I could get engrossed by it. The channel I had been watching previously, when I was checking my e-mails, was now airing Arrested Development reruns – Arrested Development had been my favorite show when it was still on the air and I was crushed when it got cancelled.
Ten minutes flew by before I realized my mom had not come out of the office. I quickly switched off the T.V. and was about to go and investigate when I heard yelling erupt from down the hall. It suddenly donned on me why my mother had been held up. It was the one aspect about life at home that I had not missed while I was away. The fights. I did not even need to know how it started or hear the words that were being shouted to know what it was about: money.
Money, money, money. It was always about money. For something so small, green and inanimate, it caused immeasurable pandemonium between my parents – their marriage was being held together by a thread. I knew they had only stayed together all these years for my sake. Subjecting me to grueling divorce proceedings and a nasty custody battle was the last thing they wanted. But as the years past and I grew older, the thread that bound them together grew weaker. Once I had turned eighteen, I knew it was only a Jacker of time.
I heard a door wrench open and saw my mother come stomping down the hall, yelling over her shoulder. My father followed close behind.
“I’m so sick and tired of you wasting money on your business to the point where I can’t even buy my own son a pair of shoes. Businesses are supposed earn money, not lose it.”
I wanted to reassure her that I had the money to buy the rain boots and she did not need to worry. I wanted to say anything that would make them stop fighting, but I held my tongue. There was an unspoken rule that my parents were never to involve me in their shouting matches, but I never tested my luck by speaking up.
Whenever I found myself in these types of situations, I would seek out my iPod and stick the two tiny, white earbuds into my ears. Like two little angels, they would sing to me at my request and at the highest possible volume, drowning out the screams of a failing marriage. This was often accompanied by me trudging to my room and slamming the door with as much force as I could muster to let my parents know that there was someone else in the household who did not tolerate their quarrels. On one occasion, I had even stood up and walked angrily out of a public restaurant when my parents had initiated a verbal tussle over dinner.
Unfortunately, on that day, as I watched another argument unfold before me, my angels of saving-grace were nowhere to be found – my iPod had been stolen earlier that year at college. I peeked up from my seat on the couch to the look at the door of my room. I would have made a mad dash for it, but my dad was standing at the entrance of the hall, blocking my escape. I bowed my head once again and tried to turn off my ears as if there was volume dial on the side of my neck. When that did not work, I pretended to tie my shoes as I stole glances at the altercation.
“That’s how businesses work, you have to spend money to make it,” shouted my father, waving his arms in the air in frustration.
“I don’t care. I’m tired of not being able to pay our bills. Last month we couldn’t pay our health insurance. What if one of us had gotten into an accident? What if Anthony had gotten injured when he was at college? Then what would we have done?”
“This business is for us, to help with our finances, to help pay for Anthony’s tuition. It’ll turn around soon.”
“For us?” my mother gawked in disbelief. “We hardly have the money to pay the mortgage. In a couple months we’re going to lose the house if things keep up this way. We’ll be homeless, and then what? Where will Anthony go to college then? I’m tired of worrying if we’ll still have a house to live in next month. I’m tired of not knowing if we’ll be able to pay for our own son’s schooling. I’m tired of barely scrapping by every month. I’m tired of this marriage.”
I could almost see it, the string, floating in between my parents, binding them. Each enraged outburst causing one thin strand to fray and break away. There were only so many left.
My mom turned her back to my dad and marched to the door. As she passed by me, I could see the hot, smoldering rage in her eyes and it forced to look away at the floor. When she reached the door, she hastily began putting on her tennis shoes. In his desperation, my father said something that rocked me to my core.
“Sometimes I feel like killing myself. I don’t want to go on living if this is what our marriage is going to be like.”
I closed my eyes and hid my pain filled grimace. I did not know if he was sincere or if he was just trying to make my mother feel guilty or sympathetic. It did not Jacker. Their fights had never progressed this far before. Usually they consisted of loud words, some insults and maybe a tossed chair or two, but never this, never death.
In response to my father’s claim, my mother let out a shrill cackle that chilled my bones.
“Fine, go ahead. See if I care. C’mon Anthony, let’s go get your shoes.”
At this point, I wanted to be anywhere but there. So like a mindless drone, I followed my mom outside and sat on the edge of the porch to finish tying my shoes, which I had not even started yet. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my father exit out of the house behind us. But instead of chasing after my mother, who had gone to start the car, his footsteps took a different course. They made a beeline for me and stopped only a foot away. I felt my body instantly become rigid. Several questions flew through my mind at the moment. What did he want? Was this really happening? Is he really about to do what I think he is?
I peered up at my father in surprise. I could not describe the expression on his face – I had never seen such a mix of emotions before. He bent down and stared directly in my eyes.
“If you ever find me on the side of the road dead, now you’ll know why. Don’t you she what she is doing? She is trying to ruin this marriage.”
I stared back at him, my mouth gaping. I could not breathe. The unspoken rule had been broken. Not only was I now involved, I was in the thick of it. It was too much for me. I pulled myself to my feet and began pacing aimlessly, my hands clenching my hair. At that moment, my mom turned the key to the ignition and the car roared to life.
I do not know what persuaded me to do it. Looking back now, I should have just gotten into the car right then and there. It would have made things so much easier. But as I listened to the engine idle and saw my mom waiting in the driver’s seat, I turned and glanced back at my father. And for as long as I live, I will never forget the anguish in his eyes as he whimpered the two words that have left scars in my heart and nightmares in my sleep.
“Help us.”
The scene was like a bad cliché. My dad stood to my right, the car in which my mom sat was on my left and I remained in the middle, paralyzed. I felt like Peter Parker in the scene from Spider-Man where the Green Goblin asks him to choose between saving Mary Jane or the bus full of frightened children. Except these were my parents and my spidey-senses had seemed to fail me. Is this how Atlas felt, I wondered to myself, with the weight of the world on his shoulders?
Finally, after staring at the ground for what seemed like an eternity and on the verge of blacking out, I glanced at my father. But my gaze only reached up to his feet fore I could not match his gaze.
“I-I have to g-get my b-boots,” I stammered, barely audible. With shoulders bent in abasement, I dragged myself to the car and crawled into the passenger seat. As the car backed out of the driveway, I peered down at my shoes to find that they were still untied.
After driving for fifteen minutes, my mom peaked over at me for a moment and then returned her focus back towards the road. Ever since strapping myself in, I had not uttered a word. I simply watched through the window as the world sped by in a mesh of blurs. I could not tell if my mind was racing so fast that I was not able to concentrate on a single thought or if I was even thinking at all.
“Talk to me,” my mother pleaded. “I hate it when you’re silent like this. It makes me feel like I’ve done something wrong.”
“It’s fine, mom. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I didn’t want you to get involved like that. Things have been building up and today was the breaking point, but you had nothing to do with it.” The warmth and comfort had returned to her voice. “How are you feeling?”
“Numb,” I stated blatantly.
It felt as if a cool breeze had swept through my body and had left behind a numbing frost. I searched my emotions for a trace of something, anything, but apathy was all that there was to be found. I was so disconcerted by my lack of emotion that I resorted to imagining scenarios in my mind to spark something within me. I thought of how I’d feel if my parents filed for divorce, if my dog got run over and even if my dad committed suicide. It was all in vain. I was the Tin-Man: empty and without a heart.
The store we ended up driving to was one I had been to before. Their shoes were simple, cheap and made to last. The lady at the door greeted my mom and I with a cheery smile and a bright “Welcome!” I mustered a smirk of feigned amusement in return.
I made a bee-line for the boot section, passing through the women’s sports shoe aisle. There was another couple searching for boots as well. They looked to be in their thirties. Or were they in their forties? The memory is fuzzy.
The woman was trying on an ugly pair of white, brown and pink stripped rain boots while her husband teased her by saying it seemed like she was walking on a pair of Neapolitan ice cream cones. She gave him a pout and strode over to him, like she was a model on a runway, before bursting into laughter. I watched as they laughed jovially together, gently poking and prodding each other. The man wrapped his arm around his wife’s shoulders, pulled her in close and gave her a tender kiss on the cheek.
I wish I could say that seeing the joy this couple shared melted my frigid demeanor and filled me with joy. That I had a grand epiphany about love and marriage and the answer to my parent’s irreconcilable differences revealed itself to me. That I went home and explained to them how to save their marriage. I wish I could say all that, but I can’t, because I do not live a hallmark movie. I can say, however, that their interactions did remind me of my father’s plea, which left a bitter taste in my mouth.
“How dare he put all this on me,” I thought. “I didn’t ruin their marriage. It’s not my fault they’re so unhappy. What do I know about love or maintaining a marriage? I’m only nineteen and I’ve yet to even go on a date for Christ’s sake. He’d have better luck consulting a Magic Eight-Ball.”
Eyeing the couple with a cold indifference, as if they were not even there, I went and tried on a pair of shin-high, black rubber boots. They were fair too big for me and nearly fell off my feet every time I took a step. However, I lied and told my mom that they were a perfect fit. I just wanted to get out of there and go…somewhere. I was not certain where I wanted to go. Not home, that was for damn sure, but I did not want to stay there either.
After we bought the oversized boots and returned to the car, my mom made her extra stop at AutoZone. In the time between departing the shoe store and arriving in the AutoZone parking lot, I thought of all the possible ways to avoid going back home. My first thought was to just jump out of the car and find a motel for the night, but with the car still in motion and my having left my wallet at home, I deemed that plan futile. I finally came to the only conclusion that was realistic.
After my mother parked the car and I heard the car door slam behind her, I quickly stuffed my hand into my pocket and withdrew my cell phone. I jammed in a number that I had memorized by heart a long time ago and waited anxiously as it began ringing, praying that someone would pick up on the other end. The call was answered on the third ring.
“What’s up Tony?” asked my friend Jack, who addressed me by my nickname. Jack had been one of my best friends since I was fourteen. I knew if there was anyone who would be able to help me out, it was him.
“Hey Jack. Can I ask you a favor?” I asked somberly.
“Sure, what’s going on?”
“Things have gotten pretty bad at my house. My parents are fighting, but it’s worse than normal. I was wondering-” I paused for a moment. Actually hearing the words come out of my mouth had stirred something within me. All the emotions that had been suppressed before – resentment, woe and anxiety – now came charging back at full force, like a stampede of rhinos. Tears began to well up and my vision became blurry. It took all my self-control to keep my composure while I was still on the phone. “I was wondering if I could stay at your house tonight.” Although I tried to hold it back, a hint of despair crept into my voice.
“Yeah man, no problem. It’s totally fine,” he answered. I could tell he had noticed the slip in my voice.
“Thanks, I really appreciate it. I’ll be there in twenty.”
As soon as I heard Jack’s end of the call click off, I lost it. After not expressing an ounce of emotion for nearly two hours, I finally broke down in uncontrollable sobs. Hot tears came cascading down my cheeks, accompanied with stifled wails of mourn. I rested my head on the dashboard and let the tears flow. All the scenarios that I had dramatized in my head earlier of divorce and death came back to me, except this time, I was not immune to the despair that escorted them. This might have been cathartic if I had had the chance to get it all out; but my grief did not last long.
Within five minutes time, my mom was already making her way back to the car. I rushed to wipe away the tears that had collected on my upper lip and chin and blinked away the ones still pooled in my eyes. However, once my mom got one look at me, she knew I had been weeping – my puffy eyes and tear-stained cheeks were less than subtle.
“It’s alright, you can cry if you want.” I felt her place her hand on my shoulder and squeeze it affectionately.
Despite all the heartache, my mom was still my mom and she knew exactly how to ease my distress. I considered her offer briefly, but ended up shaking my head.
“No, I’m fine,” I assured her. I turned to her and stated flatly, “I’m staying at Jack’s tonight.”
She nodded sorrowfully.
“I understand.” She reached for my hand with both of hers and massaged each finger before whispering in a shaky voice, “I love you and I’m sorry.”
I was not prepared for that. I immediately threw my gaze away from her and towards the window because a fresh batch of tears began streaming from my eyes.
When my mother dropped me off at the top of the drive way leading down to Jack’s house, I saw that he was already outside and he was not alone. Another one of my friends, Mark, was standing beside him.
“Yo Tony,” I heard Mark call out.
I had known both Mark and Jack for several years. We had met back in middle school and had been inseparable ever since. Each of us lived within a mile radius of one another and could always be found hanging out together. Our friendship had experienced quite a bit, from petty girl issues, to parents diagnosed with cancer to even having guns pulled on us by the police, but we had survived through it all. I considered them an extension of my family.
Despite everything we had been through together, there had always been one thing that had remained constant through our lives and had bonded us beyond measure: skateboarding. It had started as a hobby to pass the time in an otherwise dull neighborhood, but as the years passed, it quickly became our passion, our drive in life. So as I walked down the drive way towards Mark and Jack, the gravel crunching under my feet, I was not surprised to see that they each had a skateboard tucked under their arms. I, on the other hand, had left mine at home and suddenly felt strangely naked without it. I was left to hungrily eye each of theirs.
With Jack leading the way, we entered his house and began rummaging through his kitchen, conversing loudly as we went. We talked about school, skateboarding and girls. We debated whether Mark had really gone all the way with his girlfriend or if he was just full of it. And once we had determined that he indeed was just talking out of his ass, we continued our talk by relaying what our plans for spring break were.
We eventually found ourselves watching T.V. in the living room, hooting and hollering at some reruns of the The Office. I rather enjoyed our time together, it was the first time all day I had been able to joke and laugh. Despite knowing about my troubles, Jack had refrained from bringing them up, which I was grateful for.
I had almost completely forgotten about the fight between my parents that morning when my phone began buzzing. I checked the I.D. and saw that was my mother. A pang of fear, mixed with curiosity shot through me. Why is she calling me now? I wondered. I exited the living room and walked until I was out of earshot before pressing “Accept.”
“Hey mom, what’s up?” I asked.
“Nothing. I’m just calling to tell you that your father and I have talked things through and everything is back to normal.” Upon hearing this, I let out a sigh of relief. “So do you still want to stay up at Jack’s?”
“Hm, go back and be subjected to the palpable tension between my parents or stay and be in the company of people who don’t bicker constantly. Tough choice,” I thought. “I’m gonna stay here tonight,” I said aloud.
“Alright, I don’t blame you. Hey, I just wanted to let you know that I told your father that the fight caused you to cry while we were out. All he said was, ‘Join the club, I’ve been crying for years.’”
I clicked “End Call” without saying goodbye. I knew what she was trying to do by telling me what my father had said – she was trying to put me against him. She did this whenever she was angry with him so she would feel as if I were on her side. The sad part is that it often worked. I would become angry at my father based on the things she told me and feel spiteful towards him. She would usually apologize afterwards, saying that she should not talk about my father like that to me, but the damage would already be done. For the years that my parents had been fighting off and on, a deep seeded animosity had been growing in me towards my father. However, standing there having just hung up on my mother, I began to wonder if my acrimony in regards to him were indeed my own true feelings or merely a by-product of my mother’s manipulations.
I re-entered the living room still in a hostile mood from the phone call. Jack noticed my change in disposition.
“Something wrong?”
I waved off his question and pointed to his skateboard.
“Can I ride your board for a bit?” I asked, although my tone made it seem like more of a demand than a question.
“Yeah, sure. Just don’t break it.” I grabbed his skateboard, walked up to the street outside Jack’s house and jumped on it.
I know this is cheesy to say, but when I stepped on that skateboard, I stepped into a different world. It was a world of motion, the rolling of the urethane wheels over the pavement felt more natural to me than walking. It was a simple world where everything made sense, where my greatest love and my worst enemy were the same thing, and I was standing on it. But most importantly, it was a world I could escape into to hide from my troubles, at least for a while.
As soon as I stepped onto the skateboard, I began to propel myself with as much power as I could gather. The muscles in my legs – having developed over the years to allow me to push faster and ollie higher – strained against the new force I was exerting on them. I had no idea what I was doing or where I was going. Perhaps I was searching for the rabbit hole Alice had stumbled upon, hoping to trade the chaos in my own life for the bizarre and welcoming chaos of Wonderland. Or maybe I was hoping to find a bag of magical beans to take me away to a land where giants and treasure abound. The only things I knew for certain were what I could feel: the wind in my face, the stress in my legs and the rattling of the wheels under my feet.
“Tony!” I heard a shout come from behind me. It was Mark and Jack. They had departed from the house and were now standing on the edge of the road, motioning for me to meet them where they stood. I glanced at the clock on my cell phone and saw that an hour had already passed since I had started skating. Beads of sweat had begun to congregate on my forehead.
“What’s going on?” I asked when I was within speaking distance.
“We’re going over to Mark’s to smoke, you coming?” asked Jack.
Although I was similar to them when it came to interests and hobbies, our moral compasses differed substantially. I know what you’re thinking, a skateboarder who does not smoke? What a shocker, huh? But that is just how it turned out. While Mark and Jack were out experimenting with sex, drugs and alcohol throughout their teenage years, I had been preoccupied with school and grades. While they were out partying, I was inside with my nose stuck in a book, as if the author had lathered the pages with Elmers glue. So when Jack asked me if I wanted to join them, he had meant it as an invitation to come hang out with them while they smoked.
“Sure. I’ll tag along,” I replied. Normally I would refuse the offer and continue skating, but I was uncomfortable with the possibility of being left alone with my thoughts.
When we arrived on Mark’s porch, they went through a procedure I had witnessed so often that I could have replicated with my eyes blindfolded, if I so wished. Mark walked into his house, confirmed no one was home, grabbed something from the kitchen and returned to the porch. From his pocket, Jack removed a small sandwich bag, minus the sandwich. In its place were several nuggets of marijuana. He pulled one out approximately half the size of a golf ball and began to methodically pluck it into smaller pieces onto the bottom of his skateboard, which he now used as a make-shift tabletop, brushing away his long, blonde hair whenever it fell into his eyes. While Jack was occupied with this, Mark went and grabbed a small, transparent, glass pipe from its hiding spot behind a planter. Once he had checked it for any cracks or abrasions, he began filling the end piece with the tiny pieces of cannabis that Jack had picked off and which now laid in a pile on top of his skateboard. Using a lighter he had taken from inside his house, Mark then lit the green herb, allowing the pipe to fill with milky smoke. He then inhaled the smoke and held it in his lungs until his face turned a femininely cherry pink before exhaling and finishing the process with a fit of coughing. I had always been amused by the whole modus operandi of smoking; I compared it to a chef preparing ingredients for a rather simple recipe.
After taking two hits, and following the standard “Puff, Puff, Pass” etiquette, Mark handed the pipe to Jack, who proceeded to take his two puffs. After he had finished going purple at the face and hacking his own set of coughs, he presented the pipe to me with a devilish grin on his face.
“Smoke?” he asked innocently. Although both Mark and Jack knew I did not smoke, they still received enjoyment out of trying to goad me into it. In the past, whenever they had attempted this, I’d pretend to swat the pipe out of their hands, we would laugh and they would continue to smoke. That day, however, I surprised them by taking the pipe and lighter into my hands.
I frequently joked with them that it would be a special day in Hell before I ever smoked – well that day had certainly been out of the ordinary and Heaven was nowhere in sight. I stared at the pipe lying on my sweaty palm and wondered if the anguish I had felt that day had finally sent me over the edge. If taking a hit would really dull the pain to a more bearable level.
The glass was cold to the touch and the smell of the smoldering THC tickled my nose. I was shocked by how light the pipe was. I do not know why the weight surprised me so; I suppose I just thought that something which caused so much controversy would feel somewhat…heavier.
In my right hand palm laid the jade Bic lighter. After two fruitless attempts, the flame finally came to life on the third flick of the spark wheel. The flame was quite pathetic, growing to only an inch tall. Both Mark and Jack were intensely watching my every move to see what I would do next. Finally, with little reluctance, I extinguished the lighter and gave it and the pipe back to Jack, who merely chuckled in disbelief.
“I don’t know how you do it, man,” he said. “I don’t know how you’ve managed to hang out with us all these years and have never smoked even once.”
I could understand why he might have found it perplexing, but to me, it was rather simple. Despite their numerous shortcomings, my parents had taught me well. Before I knew it, a flood of memories came rising to the surface of my conscious like air bubbles in a boiling pot of water.
Of my father, I remembered the hours he and I spent together in the garage as he explained to me the inner workings of a car (although, I admit, I’m still pretty useless when it comes to engines). The copious amount of father-to-son discussions we had in which I learned what it was to be a man and live a virtuous life. And the time my college acceptance letter arrived in the mail and how my father broke down in tears and confessed that he had never dreamed of “raising such an incredible son.”
And of my mother, I fondly recalled how, when I was still in grade school, I used to assure her every day that I loved her “more than all the stars and moons in the sky.” The days I helped her wash the dishes while she taught me how to treat women correctly and with respect. And finally, our vacation through Europe where I got the chance to visit where she had grown up – it was on that vacation that I told my mom that she was one of my best friends (her eyes still get misty whenever she remembers that day, it’s one of her favorite memories). I loved my parents and I knew they loved me, so why was it so hard for them to love each other?
I plopped into one of the lawn chairs that littered the porch and closed my eyes. I breathed in several deep breaths and let them out slowly, a feckless attempt at mediation. I silently wished to be transported back to when I was still an adolescent and I knew nothing of heartbreak or angst. But when I opened my eyes, all I saw was Jack puffing a smoke ring and then snapping it with his finger to morph it into the shape of a heart. Mark snickered in amusement. Where was a Delorean when you needed one?
I woke up the next morning on the floor of Jack’s room in a sleek, black sleeping bad he had provided. I remained on my back as I waited for the morning grogginess to fade and my eyes to adjust to the darkness of the room. When I was finally able to make out the shapes around me, I sat up and drank in my surroundings. I admired the aquatic wallpaper that plastered all four walls, giving me the impression that I was inside a voluminous aquarium. The wallpaper was leftover from when Jack’s older sister had inhabited the room. Under the thick layer of dirty laundry and skateboard magazines was a plush maroon carpet, which I caressed with my fingers.
I turned on my cell phone to see that it was nine in the morning. Although my mind was no longer feeling groggy, I still did not wish to get up. However, I knew I would have to eventually. I was leaving for the field trip in a few hours and I had not even packed yet. Without waking Jack, I slowly crawled from the sleeping bag, snuck a package of Poptarts from the kitchen and left what had been my safe haven for the past day.
Completing the one mile trip from Jack’s house to my own in the waking hours of the morning in nothing more than a t-shirt, shorts and some worn through Converse had left me in a crabby mood, but when I opened the door and stepped through the threshold into the entryway, I was greeted with an overwhelming smell I had all together forgotten about during my months away at college – the smell of my mom’s homemade breakfast. Skillets, pans and kitchen appliances were all splayed before her, exerting a cacophony of sounds. The crackling of the bacon, the gentle whine of the coffee machine as it brewed, the sizzling of the buttermilk pancake batter and the sharp scraping of a spatula as it tossed the omelets and hash browns to and fro. All the while, my mother moved and waved her arms in a determined precision, as if she were the conductor of this metallic orchestra and the spatula in her hand was her baton.
My father was nowhere in sight, which could only mean that he was in his office, no doubt waiting anxiously for breakfast to finish. It appeared as if my mother had been right, that things had in fact returned to normal.
But for how long? I asked myself. How long before the next fight? Before the tension became too much and the twine holding us all together finally snapped?
As if to confirm my worries, I saw the black rubber of the rain boots standing on the floor mat next to the entrance. It was staring back at me, taunting me, like it was evidence that under this façade of normality was a marriage being held together by nothing more than the hope that next month would be different, next month would be better.
People often tell me that being normal is overrated and every family is different. But at that moment, I did not want to be different and if my we could not be normal, I would have at least accepted functional.
I removed my shoes, placed them on the welcome mat next to the boots and entered the living room. The T.V. was already on and turned to the Discovery Channel. The camera was focused on a gray-haired man’s face and the identification title at the bottom of the screen announced that he was a Marine Biologist from the University of Stanford.
All of the sudden, I had the overwhelming desire to be on a boat.
