The Car

74

About a year after my parents separated, my father bought a new car. An import compact station wagon, it was burnt orange in color and I immediately fell in love with it. Yes, I'm that kind of person who falls in love with import station wagons. It's freakish, I know. As the car was replacing my father's little import pick-up truck, he had a trailer hitch added to the new car so he could tow a trailer when he had to cart off the trash to the dump or get some building materials. This was around Nineteen Seventy-Six and six years later my father drove into the driveway with a brand new Subaru wagon. He had never been someone to trade in his cars, so the old wagon became consigned to the far end of the driveway loop.

Showing off his new prize, he explained that the old wagon had reached the point of needing more repairs than it was worth so he got the new car. He did mention in front of his girl friend Lois that, if I wanted, I could have the old wagon if I paid to have it repaired, and in fact he'd pay half the repair costs. Coming from him, this was a stunningly generous offer and left me suspicious that the old wagon was going to be a money pit. Still, I could look into it, couldn't I?

The ski area was just opening for the season when I took the car to an auto shop run by high school friends of my eldest brother. They had built a business working on imports and I thought they'd give me a straight deal. Other than the engine running a bit rough and the driver side seat being broken, they couldn't find anything significantly wrong with it. The driver side seat's back brace had been broken by my father in the past year and left the seat back a bit soft and wobbly when you leaned back on your left. I told them not to worry about that and they replaced the engine's head gasket and tuned the motor. Five hundred dollars later, the car was running just fine and I drove to the park to let dad know the total so he could plan out paying his half. But when I told him the amount, he became enraged and called me a liar and that the guys who had worked on the car didn't know what they were doing. My guess is, my father had been told the repair costs would be substantial in order to urge him into buying a new car, or the garage he took it to was filled with people who worked on American cars and simply didn't know what they were talking about when it came to estimating import car repairs. Either way, dad wasn't going to pay his half.

This just shows how his mind worked. If the repairs had been two thousand dollars, he would have paid half? But only needing to cough-up two hundred and fifty dollars was out of the question?

Needless to say, given how low the repairs costs were, I didn't miss the half that dad never paid and my driving the car for the next several months without problems proved that it had been repaired. During the spring college break, new friend Dave was in town and looking for something to do. I mentioned the broken car seat back while we were running around town and he said we could find a replacement at a junk yard. Really? Yes, all we had to do was go to a junk yard, find the general same make & model and unbolt the old seat and bolt in the replacement seat. This sounded like a great idea and he knew where a junk yard was. We then spent the next few hours driving to and walking around the back of the junk yard and climbing some of the stacks of cars looking for a matching seat. After all this time, we couldn't find an exact match, but found a seat from an earlier model and bought it, observing as we had the junk yard owner take it out. We brought it back to my house to install it only to find, once the original driver side seat was out that the bolt mounts were different on the replacement seat. The seat was also a different color anyhow, so Dave and I took it to the basement work area and debated what to do.

We decided to at least take the covers off both seats with the idea of exchanging them so the replacement seat would visually match the interior of the car. But once the metal frames and springs were exposed, we realized that the hinge where the back met the base were the same for both seats, so I thought why not just swap the seat backs thus keeping the original seat base which matched the bolt mounts. This actually worked, though when laying the seat backward, it tilted a bit, but that wasn't a big issue as I never put the back down anyhow. With the seat problem fixed, I decided this was the car I was going to drive to Colorado.

Then it came time for the car's annual inspection and it failed, labeling the car as not road worthy. They gave me a week to resolve the problems but I didn't have a clue. Talking about this with Nick at the grocery store as we worked, he explained that it was probably the rusted holes at the back of the car. In New England, salt was used to de-ice the roads during Winter and that resulting salt/slush mixture clung to the underside of the body and ate away the metal, leaving holes. He bet the fear was that exhaust fumes would come in through the holes and get the people inside. If we patched those holes, then it would pass inspection. Not only this, he knew how to patch these sorts of holes and offered to do it for free...! Holy Mother Of Luck! Following his directions, I got to his house in the afternoon before work hours and he showed me how to use Bondo putty and leftover fiberglass sack material to cover over the holes and seal them tightly. While not pretty, these patches did the trick and the car passed the second inspection.

Everything was ready for the trip to Colorado except for the little tiny detail of dad not giving me the title to the car. I realized I was having all this effort put into improving the wagon, but ultimately it was still his car. When I broached the subject with him, he'd just get a smile on his face and be very vague about when and if I'd get the title.

Now what do I do? I wondered.

As dad had made the claim in front of Lois that I could have the car if I got it repaired, I just decided to act as if it was my car and bought a radio/cassette deck to install for the trip. This would serve me well on the drive from New England to Colorado, I thought, and bought myself a component cassette deck for my eldest brother's leftover stereo system so I could tape my record albums ahead of time for the trip. Mother would later tell me that dad had called her up and laughed about me squandering all my money on car repairs and stereo upgrades that I would be arriving to Colorado penniless. In reality I had thirty-five hundred dollars saved up and mailed a check to her ahead of time to deposit into a new bank account under my name in Colorado. It was then that mother told me of the story, saying the last laugh was on dad. While I normally would have suspected the story might not be true, just mother making up another damning tale of dad, I didn't know of any other way she would have found out about me buying the tape deck for the stereo.

I left work for the last time and had five days to get ready and pack the car for the long drive. I was originally going to rent a trailer to hook to the back of the car, but once I tallied all my stuff, I realized I could squeeze it all into the back of the wagon and the passenger seat. As this blocked the interior rear view mirror, and this was before passenger side rear view mirrors were standard, I bought some temporary trailer mirrors which I could hook to the front fenders and give me a clear view to either side.

I say I could fit all my stuff, but in reality I had to leave the moped behind. It had served me well over the previous year and a half, but with the car I felt I wouldn't need it ever again. I gave it to my eldest brother as a going away present. I'm sure he soon listed it for sale or found someone else to give it to.

For some reason, during my last week, Dad and Lois lived at the family home rather than at her place. As I was leaving for Colorado a few weeks later than I normally would, was this simply a case that they always spent the Summers in the family house and I hadn't known it? Or was dad actually trying to get some more time with me in the last few days before I left?

With the car nearly packed except for my clothes, Lois came out and looked at the car and said it looked like I was ready to go. This was a perfect time to mention that I would be, but that dad still hadn't given me the title to the car. She was shocked as he had said he would in front of her. While I could have told her of dad's history of reneging on promises, I felt that would add bad blood and instead played it as a shake of the head and say ''I don't know why...'' The next morning, dad handed me the title when I came down stairs from bed, I assume Lois had a talk with him over the night and he couldn't think of an excuse as to why he was keeping it.

With it in hand, I went to the local Department of Motor Vehicles branch to register the car in my name. The problem was, you couldn't get a license plate for less than three months and the plate had to expire on one's birth month, so I had to buy a fourteen month license plate for the car, despite the fact that I was moving to Colorado in a handful of days.

whatever.

I closed out the bank account I had held with the bank in the apartment town for nine years and turned in my money machine card. I had come to love machine based banking and hoped I'd find it in Colorado when I got there. Of my remaining fifteen hundred dollars, I converted one thousand dollars of it into traveler's checks and kept five hundred as cash on hand for the trip. This was before the days of common place credit cards so using cash was normal for all of one's needs.

The car was packed and before I drove it over to Pete's house for my going away party, I noticed a nail head in the driver side back tire. As the tire was maintaining pressure, I decided it wouldn't be a problem and not to worry about it. After the party, I got home and said my goodbyes to Pappy as I expected to leave very early the next morning and he'd not be up yet. Pappy didn't seem to care either way; once my parents had separated he had labeled me as 'her kid' and had kept his distance from me ever since.

That last night at the house, I couldn't sleep. This would become a typical issue for me as I'd always have problems sleeping the night before a trip. On plane trips it didn't matter as I could sleep on the plane, but for the drive to Colorado, it would be an issue. Mother had bought an associate membership to the American Automobile Association for me and I had gotten the trip planned with them. Looking over the maps on the tank-like computer desk before settling to bed, I made a significant change to the first day. They had planned for me to go south out of New England and into Pennsylvania before heading west. But I instead decided to go straight west into New York state before settling down to Interstate 70 and lining up with the AAA planned route.

I think I finally fell asleep by two in the morning but was awake again by six. I debated whether to lay in bed for another few hours before I got on the road, but I didn't see the point in killing the time when I could be driving with it. Intending to quietly get out of the house and to the car, to my surprise dad and Lois were having none of that and chased me to the side of the car in their night wear to say goodbye to me, he shook my hand and she gave me a hug. It was probably the most positive moment I had with my father in seven years and it was a shame he couldn't have seemed this caring throughout my childhood.

Either way, my bag of clothes stuffed into the passenger seat, I started the car and was heading down the family home's driveway for the last time. Stopping at the end of the driveway, I took a moment despite there being no cross traffic, just to realize this was it.

Turing left and pulling onto the road, New England and my childhood were now left behind.

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The New Upperclassman

73

Toward the end of Fall Nineteen Eighty-Two, the younger baggers started to ask me about Dungeons & Dragons. One of them had participated in the Saturday group last year and, despite the fact that the upperclassman who had organized the two groups was now gone, this bagger was keen to get a group started again without him and given my experience being a Dungeon Master for the Sunday group he asked me to put my DM hat back on. I wasn't sure if we'd have enough players and sure enough he found a good number from his school mates. One of them was Van's year younger brother who also worked at the store, this added a note of familiarity as Van had never been an exclusive older brother keeping his younger brothers at bay, so I knew his younger brother, home, and family. I agreed to the idea, as long as we kept to a Sunday group. While I liked the ambient evening and late night darkness during the Saturday group, given my Friday night to Saturday day work schedule, I couldn't imagine going from that to a full night's gaming.

And so we gathered. Unlike before, where we pretty much always met at the upperclassman's house or Jonathan's house, this time we rotated where we gathered to play so as not to wear-out our welcome; the upperclassman's parents had gotten exasperated by the late night gaming fracas a few times and we didn't want that to happen again and find ourselves scrambling for a new place to meet at the last moment. The first session was devoted to building the player's initial characters and explaining how the game was played, purchase of the 'Player Manual' was suggested, but we shared what books we had. After that first gathering, Pete heard about the new group and joined us for most of the games thereafter.

After a few weeks of this, I realized I had become the new upperclassman, a figure of assumed wisdom being from the class before... But if one thought about it too much, such as why they were left behind when their classmates moved on, one might glimpse the upperclassman as a Wizard Of Oz figure, more reputation than true power. Still reputation was a good starting point and, despite my stuttering, I was a good enough Dungeon Master.

We added another player from my old apartment town: Mathew, who I had periodically known since sixth grade, but despite hitting it off well, we never developed a one-to-one friendship for some reason. At the time I hadn't thought about it, but I've wondered about it ever since. With Mathew came the news that his family had recently purchased the next best thing in video tape systems, a Betamax. Betamax was the HD DVD breakthrough of its time... What, so I now have to explain what HD DVD was? Fine, let's just say Betamax was going to leave VHS tapes in the dust and as we had a video rental store in our home town and Mathew had the bestest cassette player we knew of in the region, Pete soon organized movie nights where he'd rope me in for a ride, he'd pick the tapes, then we'd go Mathew's house to watch an average of two movies in a row.

What once started out looking like it'd be a solitary year for me had turned into a full schedule by the turn of the calendar year. Heck, even Christmas was surprisingly busy as my not as older brother was on leave and Lois, my dad's girl friend, decided to host a Christmas Eve dinner for us, including our eldest brother and his wife. It was probably the closest thing I had experienced to a true Christmas family gathering in seven or eight years.

And yet I had all the privacy of having my own house for most of the year.

I realized that the monster of a computer desk I had originally made was not going to ever leave the bedroom I had built it in, so it was time to build a better computer desk for my ever growing machine. As Lois had accidentally shown me the hidden key to the basement work area, I planned out and built a light frame desk with three open support frames, two bracing bars in back and a Formica covered board for the top which featured cut-out, and bolt suspended, wing-nut positioned shelves for the keyboard and expansion interface to sit within. The Formica surface hid the bolt heads holding the sunken-in computer pieces and the whole thing rivaled the professional Trash 80 work desk one could have bought at Radio Shack. In reality, I probably spent more money building the two desks for my computer than it would have cost me to buy the Radio Shack version, but then I would have lost the fun of figuring out how to make them.

With its new desk, my computer was freed from my bedroom and in the dining room area of the house, giving me a new place to be in rather than the claustrophobic everything in it bedroom I had lived out of for my Senior year of high school. With its new placement, it allowed me to host the computer game playing lunch breaks from Saturday bagging, but also seemed to inspire my mind as I could look out the large dining room window into the driveway loop and woods beyond and dream up new code.

I devised the final nut to make a climactic moment for my 'Star Quest' game, most importantly it took very little new code so it fit in the few bytes of spare memory I had. Where I had a chance of the player's ship being intercepted on the way home after destroying a planet based alien outpost, I knew I also had the chance of multiple ships intercepting the player if they had destroyed multiple planet-side outposts before returning to Earth. This chance element added surprise and anticipation to the game. So for the climax I realized all I had to do was flip a switch after the last new star had been visited by the player and greet him or her with five awaiting alien ships on the way home. I spent a lot of time playing with the number of ships at the end and fighting five seemed like a good nail biting time. But in order for the player to likely survive this climax, I had to reduce the amount of damage the attacking ships did. Yet this only helped, as well, as it lead the player into a false sense of security when taking on the ships one-on-one or in pairs. My magnum opus was complete and I couldn't wait to show it to Jeff when I returned to Colorado the next Summer.

But unlike previous years, I was keeping in touch with Jeff through his dial-up online site. Given the long distance charges, I'd wait until the late nights to dial-up his system, check my mail and then buzz the chat mode to see if he was there. He very often was and we'd chat for about an hour or two at a time once every few weeks. I was feeling highly connected then, to a level my parents would never have comprehended. Today, others are connected to a level I don't want to comprehend!

Luke and Van were going to a College a few hours drive away. While in New England that would seem like a prohibitive drive, after having lived in Colorado where towns are hours apart and I had shared long drives with my mother through Wyoming to visit my sister, the drive to Luke and Van's College didn't seem like it would be that daunting. So about four times during the college year I made the drive to their dorm room to visit them, talk about music and what we've each been up to. They shared their room with a third student, 'Dave', another one of our High School classmates who hadn't been part of our core group, but I soon warmed-up to him with these trips to their College and we became friends who'd visit during the college breaks when he'd be back in the home town.

Luke, too, I'd visit with when he'd be on his college breaks, but Van... For some reason Van was keeping his distance, it seemed. He was nice enough in person, but would then avoid contact once he was home during the breaks. Had I somehow offended him? I couldn't see how as he'd kind of been the one looking out for me during my tumultuous final year of High School. Maybe there was something going on in his life...?

By the end of my days in New England, the new Dungeons & Dragons group had been a success, though it didn't eclipse my experiences with the first group, perhaps because of how much I needed that group at that time in my life. I felt fully restored computer programming wise, even creating a science fiction book database for myself where I could enter details of the books I'd read and rate them to help determine which authors I should look into more. And at the grocery store, I had been doing a variety of work as I had originally done during my initial years helping out at the first branch store as a kid. I had even become a respected member of the store staff and during one break where I went to the back room to sit on a pallet, I found a number of other employees there on break as well including Van's younger brother. I was in a musical mood and so I got the group into doing a spur of the moment song. It was fun and I suggested we do a second, but it was felt that a second one wouldn't be as much fun as the surprise of joining the first...!

All and all this final year in New England had been very rewarding for me and very healing. What a dramatic difference it made to my foundation of memories, leaving with this as my final taste of New England, rather than running out of town to Colorado after my father had disowned me and the subsequent tumultuous final school year I'd had.

The night before I was to hop in the car and drive off, Pete organized an impromptu going away party for me. I say impromptu party for me as it turned out his upperclassman friend was on leave after his first year of service and the gathering seemed to be more for him and also included a couple of his friends, though I knew them from the first Dungeons & Dragons group. This was my first time in Pete's house, probably in over four years. His father, my former mentor Zack, was nowhere to be seen, nor Pete's mother. I wondered how they were doing, but given Pete's past unwillingness to talk about personal matters, I didn't bother ask.

After sharing pizzas and catching-up, Pete next planned for us to have a video night. Having exhausted the Betamax collection at the local video store he had gotten himself a VHS player, though I don't remember if it was a rental or one he bought for his family home. While the television was in the living room, for some reason Pete brought in the dining room chairs for us to sit in rather than using the couches and easy chairs already there. He lined them up in a row, then he pulled out the movies he'd gotten for the night. Porn. My first chance to see some, I was actually interested, though for a completely different reason than the rest, I assume, as it gave me a chance to see how normal adult body parts looked... Well, I don't know how normal they were, but the first two movies were kinda hokey and fun. I only remember the title of one of them, 'The Spirit Of Seventeen Seventy-Sex'. When we reached the end of it, I excused myself from the evening as I needed to try to get some sleep before my first day's drive to Colorado, they remained and saw at least another movie. Given that the third movie was about to start, the final goodbye was more of a brief 'see you' on the way out than the actual 'I'm moving to Colorado and will never see you again' type of goodbye.

But maybe it was better that way.

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Above Average

69

Imagine if you will a situation where you are going to graduate from High School by showing up at the school in the morning and turning in a paper. Then imagine that your father has ordered you not to leave the house or go to school that morning. What would you do?

Years later, when I'd tell people of this story, it'd be pointed out to me that my father had been trying to stop me from graduating since the very start of my Senior year of High School. How? I wondered. By starting out the year with him stating that I was disowned upon graduation. I had been set up for failure as my subconscious would realize that if graduation meant I was disowned, not graduating would save me from being disowned... Was that why I had done so poorly in my final year of High School? Perhaps it was a contributing factor, but the loss of my mentor and erstwhile protector Zack Hatch had a part to do with it, and my inability to figure out why I couldn't pass any 'Advanced Math' exam factored into it as well. Still, it was a good point: That my father had set me up to fail that year.

And as that had failed, he was now taking steps to assure I'd still fail by the end of the year, one way or another.

During the morning phone call when he ordered me to stay at home until he got there, he was formulating this plan where he was going to cancel my plane ticket to Colorado and I would be staying in town and taking Summer School in order to finish my classes and graduate. Despite my trying to tell him the issue was resolved, he wasn't going to listen to a word of it and I was to definitely stay home until he got there to give me a piece of his mind in person.

And so from that phone call at six forty-five that morning, I stayed at home and watched the clock pass seven fifteen. It was now too late to catch the bus. And I continued to wait until seven thirty. It was now too late for me to hop on my moped and take it to the school. And then seven forty came and went. And went with it, too, was any chance of catching a ride with a friend driving themselves to the school that morning. By seven forty-five, an hour after my father had called and told me he was on his way over to chew me out, it was clear he wasn't coming as he was only a twenty-five minute drive to the house when he called. At seven fifty, I decided to blow him off and realized I could take the spare key from the cabinet and take Lois's, his girl friend's, left behind truck to the High School. I did and got there with two minutes to spare.

I saw the English teacher and handed her my report, she thanked me, and I let the Principal know, and he thanked me, and I met my friends in the cafeteria. They were all going to go to Jonathan's house for an afternoon of fun and boating on the lake. I joined them and we picked up Pete's upperclassman friend along the way. At the far side of the lake, we tied-up the boat and bummed around the lake town and ate, then we boated back to Jonathan's house where I excused myself and went to work for my last day at the grocery store before I would have gone to Colorado later that week. Once done with work I took the truck home and parked it where it had always been and found that my father still wasn't home. He didn't get there with Lois until a few minutes later and apologized to me for making me wait all day for him to arrive. So I now knew that his order for me to stay home had been a rouse and I also knew that he had no clue that I hadn't stayed home.

So I told him it wasn't a problem as I hadn't stayed home.

A touch of his anger flared but with Lois there, he held it in check. But I wasn't going to graduate and he had told me to stay home! ''What are you talking about? They told me yesterday I was going to graduate,'' I said trying to suppress the smile at the corner of my lips. I was? ''Yes, I checked in at the school this morning and confirmed it,'' I noted, letting some of the smile out.

If his girl friend hadn't been there he would have had a yell fest at me and repeatedly called me a liar, but with her there, he couldn't and just said, ''Well that's nice to know.'' During dinner preparation he lamented that he hadn't had time to get ready for the graduation ceremony. At this I told him not to worry about it as I wasn't going. Now he had a new thing to bark about. I definitely was going to the graduation ceremony and he wasn't going to hear another word of it!

What was I going to wear, he asked during dinner. For what? For graduation. I guessed just my jeans and tee shirt. That wasn't acceptable the bark came back. I pointed out that I would be wearing a gown over it so no one would know. It still wasn't acceptable and we were going out first thing in the morning to buy me something appropriate!

whatever.

The next morning I pointed out that I could use my corduroy three piece suit from my eldest brother's wedding a few years earlier, it would only be the fourth time I had ever worn it. But no, it was too old and I needed something new for graduation and the three of us got into his car and we were off to the capital city. We went to the same formal wear place I had gone to two and a half years earlier for the corduroy suit and, as I didn't care, I let him and Lois pick out the suit, slacks, formal shirt and tie for me. They made me dressed up at the clothing store to make sure it all worked together. With the top button closed and the tie cinched up to my neck I felt myself break out in a cold sweat and wanted to tear them from my throat. Years later a psychologist would theorize the reason why I hated things tightly around my neck harkened back to the day of my birth. But I didn't have to worry about it now as my father and Lois were soon satisfied and I could quickly take off the suit. We drove back home as I had to be to graduation prep by the start of the afternoon.

Once back, we realized that we hadn't gotten any dress shoes so I'd have to wear my sneakers for the ceremony, but at least I'd be nicely dressed-up otherwise. I put on the slacks and shirt but kept it unbuttoned at the top and carried my tie & jacket over my arm as I left, I told my father I'd put them on at the school. Van picked me up and we were off. At the school it turned out that many of us who swore we weren't going to participate in the graduation ceremony were there as well, no doubt also upon demand of their parents. I left the tie & jacket in Van's car and everyone else went to get their gowns from the fittings of the previous Monday, I went to the office to find out about my gown. It turned out they had given it to a girl in our class who hadn't a gown of her own on Monday during the fittings, at the time they thought I wasn't going to need it, after all. So they pulled out a box of spare gowns and found one close enough in size for me to use, cap too, then I scrambled to the gymnasium where the rest of my classmates had already started 'procession practice'. I snuck into line where Luke showed me how to walk: Step, pause, step, pause. It reminded me of the 'King Tut' dance comedian Steve Martin had done on Saturday Night Live.

Once practice was done, there was a short break until the ceremony, this was when I should have gone out to Van's car to get the rest of my suit, but sure enough, with the gown on, all you could see was the line of the shirt collar and cuff of my slacks with the sneakers the most visible part. I didn't worry about it, just buttoning all but the very top button of the shirt and pinching in the collar underneath the gown to make it looked like it was buttoned.

The time had come and we lined-up in our places inside the gym and the band started playing. We processed from the gym's back door to our seats in front of the spectators already there and sat down. Various people spoke, but I wasn't paying attention as I just wanted to get this over with. Finally, it was time to be given our diplomas and we got up one row at a time to process to the stage. The Principal handed them out and the tassel of my cap moved from one side to the other, then I walked normally back to my seat and unbuttoned my upper shirt and pulled out the collar to let my neck breathe as I awaited the end of the ceremony. It came, some tossed their caps into the air, and then we could go to the parking lot to 'meet our loved ones'. In my case though, it was my father, his girl friend, and to my surprise my British Uncle Ronny had somehow found out about the graduation and come. He was the only one armed with a camera and all the pictures the family had of the event came from him. I don't even know if my eldest brother knew of the graduation day and time, nor if my not as older brother was still in town.

With Lois there as a witness, I decided to manipulate my father and asked him if I could stay at the house one more year to work full-time at the grocery store and save my money to officially move to Colorado. Knowing with her there hearing this request, he'd have to say 'Yes' so as not to reveal his true self to her. He said, ''Of course!''

He decided we should go out for dinner. Uncle Ronny couldn't join us and excused himself to drive home, and I 'went to change' and got the rest of my suit out of Van's car. I took off my gown and cap and carried them with the suit to where dad had parked and we drove to the house to get Pappy. After dinner, we got home and as they went to the living room to watch shows, I went up stairs to my bedroom. Using the headphones, I listened to music lying in bed throughout the night as I was so buzzed with the excitement of having graduated.

I couldn't sleep at all and watched the clock until it was time for my final trip to the school the following morning. It was the day after graduation and I remembered what I could do. I entered the school and went to the guidance counselor's office. He wanted to know what brought me back and I told him I wanted my file. He'd have to get it and a few minutes later returned, file in hand. It looked like a lot of paperwork had been removed, but the results of the I.Q. test were still there. I didn't know much about I.Q. tests, but as I left the school and peeked in at the results I knew that one hundred was an average score.

I was above average.

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Not Graduating

68

The last week and a half of Senior year was effectively just a full day study hall for us as they wanted to get the final grades in and confirmed ahead of time before the graduation ceremony occurred Wednesday of the following week. The first couple days of this was us trading our yearbooks back and forth for signings. This would have been a good time to play games on the computers at the school, but I'm glad I couldn't as it assured I didn't spend my last days hidden in a closet while the rest of Senior class had its final social fest. Twelve years. And if you include all the years I'd been going to any school with some of these kids, Fourteen!

I did have a panicked moment the previous week as it suddenly occurred to me that, given the number of classes I'd withdrawn from and failed this year that I might not have enough credits to graduate, but looking over all my past years and totaling up the credits, I found I'd be fine. I had become such a class-taking over-achiever toward the end of my Sophomore year and all through my Junior year that I had gotten most all of the credits I needed to graduate before my Senior year. In retrospect, had I known this, then I would have demanded taking the 'Civics' course during my Junior year as I had originally wanted, thus I probably could have been done with High School by the first quarter of this year. Too late to worry about it now. As long as I passed the final quarter of 'Civics' class, I was free and clear. With the gaps left from the withdrawn math and Spanish classes, I even had additional English quarter credits to spare!

As the end of the final full week came, year books were filled and we faced the challenge of where we were going to sit as we visited for the hours of the day: Library area for a couple of hours? Shoot some hoops in the gym? Let's sit in the cafeteria for the last few hours of the day! All this time in the background was the Death March. Names of Seniors were called over the intercom, about one per hour, as they were beckoned to the office. These were the students being informed that they were not going to graduate. Most of the time these names were no surprise as they would include students who would never show up to school anyhow and thus their name would be called again and again between the names of those who were here. One surprise was the son of the music teacher; after his name was called we didn't see him again. We soon heard that his father had rushed him to the nearest G.E.D. testing location so he would be done with High School one way or the other, though still wouldn't be able to participate in the graduation ceremony itself. Hell, a lot of us weren't planning on putting on the cap and gown and participating in that. No great loss.

We were sitting in the cafeteria for our final Friday, chatting, and my name was called. A hush fell over the table as everyone assumed what it meant. Even me, despite my having gone over my numbers earlier and finding them fit. Even me. I rose from my chair at the end of the table and walked to the office. With each step my mind raced: Had there been anything I'd missed? If not, then that meant I'd flunked the final quarter of 'Civics' class: A required class, if not passed one couldn't graduate. But I thought I'd been doing better in that class for this final quarter...

Arriving at the office I was ushered into the conference room where the guidance counselor sat. He told me to close the door behind me. I did, then immediately asked: ''Was it Civics class?''

He knew exactly what I was asking and said, ''No.'' Then I rattled through the rest of the classes I had been taking during the final quarter and to each it was, ''No.'' I had passed all my classes and yet had gotten called to the office? Was there some other reason I'd been called in to the office for? ''No.''

''Then what?'' I asked, dumbfounded. The guidance counselor gave me the explanation of why I wasn't graduating: I had failed Basic Composition, a required class for my Sophomore year. ''Yes, but I took it and passed it in my Junior year,'' I shot back. True, but when one fails that class, they need to take an additional English class along with it to make up for failing it the first time. ''But I have spare English credits,'' I pointed out. Yes, but they weren't the right type of English class credits. There was a specific class type that needed to be taken and as I hadn't taken it in the past two years, I wasn't going to be graduating now... My jaw dropped at this bizarre situation as I asked what type of English class was it? A literature class. Had they caught it soon enough then I could have taken 'Science Fiction Lit' this quarter and graduated. ''But I read Science Fiction all the time...'' I returned. That may be, but you didn't take the class. Sorry. Next.

I walked out of the office and meandered back toward my friends sitting in the cafeteria. I had no clue what to say. As I came to my empty end seat, I spontaneously kicked it and, as if I was dreaming and this wasn't reality, it made a beautiful arc while staying completely level from where our table was, down the empty aisle between tables to make a perfect four point landing at the end of the cafeteria around thirty feet away. It was an impossible kick, and yet I had done it. Everything was no longer making sense. My friends were looking at me with straight faces, more interested in what I'd been told rather than noticing the chair. How could I tell them that an oversight from my Sophomore year of High School was why I wasn't going to be graduating? ''I'll think of something,'' I told them but knew I had nothing.

''Get that back,'' the cafeteria monitor said about the chair. I went and carried it back to the table of my friends and sat down as they talked about other things.

For some reason my not as older brother was on leave and back in our home town for a few days. Staying with my eldest brother and his wife, I had already been invited to join them after work for a visit. An evening of bagging groceries immediately after school then I hopped on my moped and drove to my eldest brother's current place. This was the closest he had lived to the family home since he had been disowned eleven years earlier. A small house that had been added onto again and again over the century, it had an odd linear feel to the rooms. At the far end was the sitting area of futons or platforms with cushions tossed on top. We sat there and my not as older brother talked about his work in the military as my mind just zoned-out about the fact that I wasn't graduating. Eventually the talk turned to asking me how things were going, it would have been a great question at the beginning of the school year, but now all I had to say was, ''I'm not going to be graduating.''

This caused a quiet moment, then the echoed question, ''You aren't going to graduate?''

''No. They just told me this afternoon,'' and that seemed to be the end of that topic.

After nine o'clock, I took my leave and went home.

My paternal grandfather had returned from snowbirding by May and my father and his girlfriend had taken up returning home for dinner and to watch T.V. with him during the evenings. I just went straight to my bedroom and lay there until I fell asleep.

Saturday was my final full day at the grocery store until my summer break, then our final Dungeons & Dragon's session for the school year that evening. Sunday morning I got a surprise phone call from Van, he and Luke were going to see that new Spielberg movie and were wondering if I'd want to come along and I did. Van picked me up and we made small chit-chat during the drive, but ignored the big issue. We picked up Luke then continued the rest of the way to the capital city where we saw E.T. The Extraterrestrial. It was a nice enough movie, but for some reason my mind was on other things during it. Afterwards we found a sandwich shop and ate, then got on the road back to our homes. I'm sure we talked of various things during lunch and the drive back, but I can't for the life of me remember what.

When I got home, my father and his girl friend, Lois, had taken the night off so Pappy was back in his apartment for the evening and I had the house to myself. I went to my bedroom, lowered the computer keyboard and placed the writing board over it and began writing my heart out about the whole 'Not Graduating' situation. I noted the unfairness of it all with the bit that the guidance counselor had told me in my Sophomore year that he'd get back to me if there was any problem with my not passing Basic Composition the first time. I added my dismay that he apparently meant he'd get back to me four days before graduation. Five pages written in pencil over three hours, I read it and realized it was pretty good but could be tightened-up. For the first time in many years, I went from a rough draft and made a final copy in pen, cutting out about a page worth of whining and focusing on the facts.

Going to school the following morning, I left it unsigned in the Principal's inbox. Van caught me in the hallway as I walked out and told me he was going home after his gown fitting and wondered if I wanted to join him for a trip to his house and lunch. Sure, I waited in the cafeteria until he was done, then we left.

The visit to his house was a nice change of pace than just sitting at the school waiting out the final days as we had been the whole previous week. His mother was there and made us some sandwiches. We played a little in his front yard, I think it was with a Frisbee, and then we hopped back in the car to return to the school to pick up some stuff.

Barely before I even made it in the front door of the school, classmates were coming out to get me. They had been calling my name over the intercom for the past few hours I had been at Van's place and the staff had been going to each student asking them if they knew where I was. Well, I was now here, so I went to the office to find out what the fuss was about. The office staff was excited to see me and I was rushed into the Principal's office, the guidance counselor was there with the Principal.

He had read my note from his inbox and had been inspired to look into the facts, guess who it was that had left it, and see if what I said had been true. After he confirmed it, they had brain stormed to find what they could do and, since I was already familiar with Science Fiction, they decided that I could take the Final of the 'Science Fiction Lit' class. If I passed it, they'd grant me the quarter credit I needed and I'd be graduating with the rest of my classmates. I could do the Final at home that evening, but I needed to have it in by eight fifteen the next morning for it to be graded and my graduation confirmed. I agreed with this plan and they handed back my four page letter and was told to find the 'Science Fiction Lit' teacher to discover what the Final was.

It turned out it was with the English teacher who had been so impressed with me during my Junior year and stunned by my decline during my Senior year. I had actually taken two English classes with her in the preceding two quarters and had improved from my failed second quarter class with her. The further irony was during the fourth quarter I had 'Reading For Leisure' with her and had spent my time reading and doing reports on various Science Fiction books of my choosing. I found her in the teacher work area and mentioned I had been sent to her to find out what the Final was. Essentially, I had to write a book report on one of a selection of Science Fiction books. I looked over the list and found that I hadn't read any of them already. So I picked the Arthur C. Clark one: Bicentennial Man. The school didn't have a copy I could borrow, but I was sure my father had one in his Science Fiction book collection.

Van greeted me outside the office area and asked what was up? By now, the rest of my classmates had long since gone so it had been nice for him to hang around. I told him about the plan that they'd let me graduate if I turned in a book report. He was stunned, but thought it was great and offered me a ride to the grocery store for our afternoon's work. Still holding my four page letter in my hand, I tucked it into the fold of the car's bench seat during the drive, then after work I walked home across the hayfield and had dinner with dad, Lois, and Pappy. My father, as seemed always the case, was oblivious to what was going on in my life and never asked any questions. Once done, they retired to the living room to watch shows and I went up stairs to look through his Science Fiction book collection, now shelved these past three years in my prior bedroom without my consent, and found the book, a book club edition.

And this is where I write the paragraph about the long night I spent reading the book from cover to cover and the bleary-eyed pre-dawn hours working up the book report... Bull. I just read the back cover tease, the jacket flaps' description and used my memory of the many other Arthur C. Clarke books I'd read over the years and the themes he would often touch on. I then wrote a report based on those themes and the impact they had and tossed in the couple of facts I had gleaned about the book so the report had some apparent connection to it. In pen, single draft, I slept well as my father and Lois went to her house for the night.

The following morning I woke up and got ready to catch the bus to school and turn in the book report, then the house phone began ringing and ringing. I answered it. It was my father, he had just found out about my not graduating and I was to stay home until he got there to have a talk with me. I tried explaining to him that I was graduating and that I couldn't stay home as I had to get to the school. He called me a liar and ordered me to stay there until he arrived.

Period.

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Environment

58

Despite my schizophrenic welcome home on my first day back, could I return to living there as normal?

The following morning I slept very late -- obviously given my previous thirty-four hour day -- and my exhaustion had protected me from dwelling on the otherwise Earthshaking news that I was disowned and my father's divorce from his second wife was due to 'what I was'. Even after roughly fourteen hours of sleep, I was still not one hundred percent and only slowly gathered myself, cleaned-up and got dressed. When I had finally gotten home after my 'birthday party' I discovered that my bedroom had undergone a thorough rummaging over the Summer. I don't know what whoever it was had hoped to find but what had been in my room at the start of Summer was still there, just displaced.

Often, upon returning to New England, my first day would be devoted to calling Jonathan and going to his place to show off my new computer game acquisitions. But as the day was already half over, I simply called and made arrangements for the following day. I went to the grocery store across the hayfield to let them know I was back and ask about my schedule. Everything was set up for a return to work after Labor Day and I met and briefly chatted with Pete and Van on the way out. Van said I could just punch in and start working with them right then, but I passed, blaming it on jet lag rather than let on about the previous day's events.

And so the stage was set for my return to normal life. My hope, now, was the same as it had been with the start of sixth grade, that the familiar environment of school and my friends would give me stability while my home life was less than perfect.

Within the first few weeks Roberta and her son came back to the house, when dad wasn't there, to look for more of her stuff that she had left behind. Always defended by her perpetual smirk, I still mustered-up the courage to apologize to her. She didn't know for what and I told her that dad had explained to me that I was the reason their marriage failed. She chortled and explained that the night of the variety show, when dad said he'd be working late at the park to me, but said he'd be at the variety show to her, he had actually been having an affair with Lois. And had been during the couple of months he had been 'working late' that Spring. The divorce had been based on my father being unfaithful and nothing to do with me. Dad blaming me for the mistakes he made, ultimately nothing new, that was just the kind of guy he was. This news left me off the hook for the break-up, but I didn't bother confront dad about his B.S. as I was afraid it might bring back up the topic of 'what I was' and I still didn't have an answer for that.

It was soon clear that Lois was blissfully unaware of the disowning or what was behind it. She made an effort at winning me over by, having heard that I liked lasagna, she made me some at the restaurant and brought it to the house for me: A large pan of ziti with melted cheese kisses between. I didn't complain as it tasted fine and lasted me several days. When she heard I was taking photography class at High School, she brought me her deceased husband's pricey camera to use and save me from relying on one of the high school's battered loaners. I soon figured out that dad wanted to impress Lois with how great a guy he was, and so I would ask dad about things where I needed to rely on his word when she was there. Whatever answer he gave in front of her, he was stuck with it as he didn't want to let-on to Lois how he actually was.

While my father was living with his new girl friend at her house, he was still putting on a show of being home to share dinner with Pappy, though he would often skip out on the evenings leaving Pappy to return to his apartment to have Prime Time T.V. viewing on his own. Then father would start skipping dinner times and Pappy apparently saw the writing on the wall; after nine years since giving up his snowbirding to Florida, he made arrangements to fly back to there for the Winter. Father was stunned and tried to talk him out of it, but Pappy wasn't interested in what my father had to say and was gone by October. Now I truly had the whole house to myself as my father wasn't going to come home to share dinnertime with me. He'd stop by once or twice a week just to get the pile of mail I had collected for him in the meantime, pulling out the bills for myself.

Between my father's car and Lois's truck, they would drive together in one of the vehicles and leave the other parked in the driveway. Lois said I could feel free to use her truck whenever it was left here as dad had told her I could use his car when left at the home. She showed me where the keys were hidden in a corner cabinet, it turned out all the keys were hidden there, including the key to the padlock my father used to keep me out of the basement workshop and away from my tools.

I decided to build myself a computer desk for my bedroom and used her truck to pick up sheets of plywood and two by fours. Built in place, like a tank, it worked well for my needs at the time, with the computer keyboard in a cut-out hole allowing it to be raised when I wanted to use it, but lowered and a snug-fit board placed over it for a writing surface during school work. When I say it was built like a tank, it unfortunately was: With all the half inch plywood and interlaced two by four framing, I once had to make an adjustment from underneath to the computer raising shelf and couldn't lift the desk up to give me the room I needed. It finally dawned on me to use the tire jack from a car and get the desk raised that way, then put bricks underneath while I worked. As the desk was wider than the door, I realized it was never going to leave the bedroom I had built it in, but as I wasn't planning on changing bedrooms it didn't really matter.

With Winter arriving and the heating oil bills rising, I soon realized I couldn't afford to heat the whole house with my part-time money from work, so I left the house in the fifties and pulled the bathroom space heater into my bedroom to keep it warm. Still, it couldn't fight against the draft from the early twentieth century windows of the house and I finally nailed one of the old family sleeping bags over it. That made all the difference in the world for keeping the room warm, but also cut off any daylight; there was plenty of daylight that could come into the rest of the house, I concluded.

One Saturday at work we had one of the biggest snow storms of that year and I got to walk across the hayfield back home through a two and a half foot blanket of snow. Leaving work soon after six o'clock and getting to the house by about twenty past, dad stormed into the house at six thirty and yelled at me as he and Lois had spent the past forty-five minutes stuck in the snow at the bottom of the driveway and I should have had it all cleared out with the snow blower before they had come. As this visit had been unannounced, I pointed out I was still working when he had gotten stuck at the end of the driveway, so I didn't see how I could have gotten it cleared in time for him even if he had told me they were coming. Dad realized that Lois had drifted in behind him and was seeing the real him and quickly finished the argument by yelling at me, ''That's no excuse!'' While they had come to have a surprise dinner with me, I instead went straight out to the garage and spent the next two hours clearing the driveway to make it faster for them to leave while they had dinner for themselves. Lois had left a plate for me once I was done. Eating it alone, I then went straight to my room, not having seen dad again before they left.

After that time, dad didn't make any attempts to come back to the home for any length of time until Pappy returned the following Spring.

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Happy Birthday!

57

It was typical that the plane back to New England would be on the Thursday before Labor Day as my father would often have that as his day off and he could pick me up at Logan airport, normally in the evening, and get us home by night. This time, though, the flight back didn't leave until after dinner Colorado time. My not as older brother had some leave from the Air Force and arrived at the mobile home for my last day or so, then after we ate it was off to the local airport. Nothing particularly interesting about the flight other than most of it was in the darkness of night time. Given the two hour time change, we didn't arrive at the gate until one fourteen in the morning. Taking my computer with me off the plane as my carry-on, I expected to see dad in the gate waiting area, which was a normal practice for people before the turn of the century.

But my father wasn't there. I assumed that he had been running a little late, perhaps having trouble finding the gate so late in the night. So I stood aside and waited a half hour as the rest of the passengers greeted their own relatives that were here for them, or just drifted past, until they began to trickle to a few stragglers. I debated the pros and cons of remaining behind at the empty gate lobby, and decided it would be easier to follow the last handful of people to where the baggage claim was, rather than wait another half hour then figure it out for my own, alone. I concluded that, given the lateness, perhaps dad's plan all along was to meet me at the baggage claim and assumed it would be obvious to me. He had always been good at assuming people somehow guessing what was obvious to him.

Drifting as the last people through the airport would normally have perked my interest, but I was just tired and wanted to get home to bed. Once at the baggage claim the serpentine belt was already running, weaving in and out of the floor space providing plenty of opportunity to stand at the side and grab one's luggage. With much of the suitcases already picked out, mine were easy to find and move to one side. My father wasn't here either. Eventually the belt stopped and the last of the passengers gone except for me. Being before the age of mobile phones, I saw a payphone nearby and went to it to call home as I started to wonder if dad had just simply forgotten about me. I made sure to pick a phone where I could keep an eye on my collection of bags still by the belt. Using the last of my change, I called and the phone rang and rang and there was no answer, so clearly he and Roberta must have been on their way otherwise one of them would have been home this time of night to answer the phone. Still, I felt I should touch base with someone just so it was known where I was. The call not having completed, my change was returned to me and I called my mother in Colorado, which at this time would have been past midnight her time. Her initial anger at me calling late was quickly replaced with stunned silence as she realized I was alone at the airport.

Her first decision was to have me give her the payphone number and then she would call me back once she got dad on the phone at home. A few minutes stretched into fifteen and I decided to pull out the book of science fiction short stories I had brought with me on the plane to read. I tried to start the next one, but my eyes really didn't want to focus, just close. The payphone rang after twenty minutes had gone since I'd called her: Mother was on the line. She had called the house several times and gotten no answer so she concluded dad must truly be on his way and just been held up by something. With the emptiness of the airport closing in, I asked if she could stay on the phone for a bit and keep talking, she instead handed the phone to my not as older brother and we chatted for a bit, but soon my mother was back on the line explaining that she couldn't afford the long distance charges and was sure my father would be there soon.

Deciding what I should do, I looked to my pile of bags by the luggage belt and even though there was no one else around, I felt they were exposed and ready to be stolen if I closed my eyes to let them rest. I found a strip of chairs in an alcove near the claim area and brought my bags to the end chair, allowing me to huddle next to them and try to finish reading the story I had started. Once done it was past four in the morning and I couldn't imagine being awake another minute or more, but at the same time I couldn't really imaging sleeping in this stiff plastic chair either. I looked at the floor with its dingy carpet with bits of gum and dirt scuffed into it and hated the thought of lying on it. Also, in this alcove, what if I fell asleep and dad arrived at the claim area and not see me? Then I realized that in the protrusions of the serpentine luggage belt was a carpeted strip. I walked up to it for a look and it was clean. Stepping up over the belt I sat on it for a minute and made sure I could see my bags clearly from this position and anyone arriving could clearly see me. Then I pulled my legs up and lay down, just wanting to rest my eyes while intermittently glancing at my bags; I fell fast asleep on my back.

I was woken up by a guard around five thirty in the morning and told I couldn't be there as the day's planes would soon start arriving. I got myself up and off the belt island, the echoing sounds of vacuums permeated the space as the cleaning crew had arrived. My bags were still where I had left them and, seeing the time, I went back to the payphone and called the house again. It rang and rang, but the collect operator wouldn't let it ring more than just a couple extra times. So I settled down in the chair next to my bags and entered a semi-conscious stupor. The airport came to life as the morning sun drew in from the glass wall. Desks which had been empty all this time since I'd gotten here finally had people, then the first new crop of passengers arrived and the serpentine belt again flowed. It stopped again once empty, then flowed again with the next crop of passengers. The various arriving people were all busy looking for their bags and took no notice of me off to the side.

It finally dawned on me that it was passed eight o'clock. I tried the house again, and again there was no answer. I debated about whether to call my mother given how early it was her time, but finally chose to do so. I was still at the airport?!? She yelled back when I told her. Father had gone from an ass who was late to pick me up to a full hole for having forgotten to pick me up entirely. She went back to the plan of calling the family home a few more times, then she got desperate and called Uncle Ronny and Aunt Harriet. I hadn't seen either of them in years since my mother had first moved to Colorado. I hadn't any way of visiting them once living with my father as I didn't have a driver's license yet, and once I'd received my license, in my typically out of sight out of mind fashion, I hadn't thought of visiting them in the year since. Though from my father's side of the family, they never seemed to take an interest in visiting him. They agreed to pick me up at the airport once they cleaned-up and had breakfast, both being senior citizens at this point, I couldn't begrudge them that.

Then it occurred to mother to call the ski area and see if my dad was there. He was and he was pissed that mother had called Uncle Ronny and Aunt Harriet as he was going to pick me up in his own time. He called them to tell them not to come, but it was too late and they had already left for the two hour drive to Logan. Just shy of eleven thirty it finally dawned on me that my name was being called again and again on the airport intercom, I then had to figure out where the nearest phone of the right color was located. As my flight had long since emptied its bags, once they had reached the airport Uncle Ronny couldn't find out what luggage claim area I was in as the airport had several and he was on the phone to ask me. I didn't know either at this point and asked an attendant behind a counter next to me. I told them and they would see me soon. Mother had told me to call her once they had arrived so she would finally know I was leaving the airport. My not as older brother answered the phone, perhaps mother had gone to work by now, was she working this day? My mind simply wasn't functioning anymore but it occurred to me I should tell my brother that our Aunt and Uncle were here to take me home.

They came down the long concourse to the claim area and looked worried. Rather than having us lug my stuff to where the car was parked, Aunt Harriet thought it would be best if Uncle Ronny got the car and met us curbside just outside the glass wall of the claim area. He agreed and left. Not knowing what else to say in the meantime, she asked me how the flight had been. I flat out told her that at this point I couldn't even remember the flight as I'd been up so long with only a cat nap a few hours back. She assured me that I could sleep in the back of the car during the drive to my family home. I brought my stuff over to the glass wall and we looked out waiting to see their car. Aunt Harriet was beginning to wonder why it was taking so long when then Uncle Ronny arrived in the car outside. I brought my stuff out and he helped me load it into the trunk, then I clambered into the back and lay straight down as he explained he had to drive around the airport a couple of times before he found the right lane to take to this claim area.

I lay in back, though couldn't sleep, but at the same time I didn't want to sit up and have them try to engage me in conversation as I was too tired for that as well. I just lay back facing upwards, the cloth surface making-up the ceiling of the car bobbed back and forth as we rode. Then it donned on me it was my head bobbing back and forth with the bumps in the road. Hours later, they prompted me that we were almost there and I got myself to a sitting position and looked out the window to watch the familiar main road of my home town flow by. I focused my mind and finally got out the words to thank them for picking me up. They told me it was no problem at all and, while Aunt Harriet still looked worried for me, Uncle Ronny tried to lighten the mood with his usual bright smile. Up the woods cloaked driveway, we pulled into the loop portion and stopped. Dad had left work to meet us, despite his telling them to leave my luggage on the ground and go, Uncle Ronny insisted on helping us bring it in. Dad thanked him, but couldn't talk to them now as, 'He had to have a talk with me,' and they needed to leave. As my father followed them out the back door, I slunk to the kitchen table and waited for him to return. He did, and despite the warm weather, he closed the back door and sat on the other side of the table.

He then let me know that Roberta had divorced him over the Summer because of 'what I was' and it was all my fault. He had decided not to pick me up at the airport to 'teach me a lesson', though I would later learn that he told everyone else that he thought one o'clock Friday morning came after Friday night. He informed me that I was disowned and that he wanted me out of the house and never to see me again, but as he was magnanimous, he would let me stay at the family home to finish-up my last year of High School as long as I paid the bills. Upon graduation, the disowning would take effect.

He was staying with his new girl friend at her house. She owned a restaurant and once she knew I was coming back, she insisted on having a belated birthday party for me at her restaurant. As it was three in the afternoon, I asked if I had time to take a nap on my bed. ''No.'' I was told as we had to leave now. Dad went to Pappy's apartment to let him know it was time to go, but as Pappy had thought we would be leaving at dinner time, he needed to get ready first. I remained sitting at the kitchen table for the next half hour then it occurred to me to use the bathroom and splash some water on my face at least. I got into the back seat of the car with dad and Pappy taking the front seats.

The next couple of towns away, when we arrived at the place, it looked familiar as I had glimpsed it outside the passenger window so often over the years as a child. We came in and went to a table in the back half of the restaurant. 'Lois' came out to meet us and we sat down at a table and her daughter joined us. We made our orders and I realized this would be the first thing I'd have to eat since the airplane. It took me a few moments before I recognized Lois as the ticket girl my father had introduced me to nine years earlier who had run her fingers through my hair and told me how it was just like my dad's. Now she apparently ran a restaurant. She tried to engage me in some conversation, such as how had the flight been and such, but I was still far too tired to give more than a word or two response.

After dinner, she and dad went to the back kitchen area leaving just Pappy, me and Lois's daughter. She leaned forward and with a smirk on her face told me that dad had spent the whole Summer going around telling everyone that I was Gay. I don't know if Pappy hadn't heard what she said, or he was pretending not to have heard it. I had no idea how to respond and just sat silently. Given my 'situation' I knew I was different, but I had always thought that being 'Gay' meant having same-sex interests. I didn't have any of those, nor any interest in any sex. I didn't have much time to reflect on this though as dad and Lois emerged singing from the kitchen with smiles on their faces and a lit birthday cake.

''Happy Birthday To You, Happy Birthday To You...''

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