Raising Jake. Charlie Carillo
apple looks like a Ping-Pong ball lodged in his throat.
Jake laughs. “I’m just busting your chops,” he says. “It’s no big deal.”
The boys seem relieved. The short one asks, “What are you gonna do, man? I mean, where are you gonna go?”
Jake shrugs. “Ask my father.”
They turn their gaze to me. I take a sip of my Coke. “I have no idea,” I say as cheerfully as I can. “Maybe I’ll put him to work somewhere.”
The boys laugh, then abruptly stop laughing. What at first seemed like a joke suddenly strikes them as a possibility both real and terrifying. You can quit school at age sixteen in New York City, but that’s a concept that’s never dawned on these kids. What with college and then graduate school or law school or med school, plus the “year out” here and there for the Peace Corps, or just to go backpacking across Europe, they could be crowding thirty before they’re ready to go out there and turn a buck. That way, the gap between the start of a career and the maturation of a massive trust fund is only a few years.
I laugh out loud. “I’m just busting your chops,” I say. “I’m not going to put Jake to work just yet. Truth is, I have to find myself a job first.”
The two kids look at me, then at Jake, their mouths hanging open.
“He just got fired,” Jake explains helpfully, almost cheerfully, and it’s nearly balletic, the way they take identical steps backward, away from our booth. They have obviously been taught to stay away from losers, because losing is contagious. But they’ve also been taught to be polite, so they’re in a little bit of a jam. I decide to let them off the hook.
“Well, fellows, it’s been nice meeting you,” I say, and it’s just what they need to make their move. They tell me it’s been nice meeting me, and then turn to Jake.
“Stay in touch, man,” says the short one.
“You know where to find us,” adds the tall one, and with that the two of them are gone, good-bye, out of there.
Jake takes a sip of his Coke. His former classmates pass the front window of the diner but don’t look back for a final wave. It’s dangerous to do that. Look at what happened to Lot’s wife.
“Pair of assholes,” Jake says, almost sympathetically. On another day I might have been stunned to hear my son speak this way, but not today. Foul language won’t even crack the top ten list of this day’s concerns.
“Why are they assholes?”
“I don’t know, Dad. Maybe they were dropped on their heads when they were babies.”
“No, what I meant was, what makes them assholes?”
“Coming in here and acting as if they care about me getting kicked out.”
“They don’t care?”
“Are you kidding? They’re like people who slow down on the highway to look at a wreck. All they want is some juicy stuff to report back to the rest of the guys.”
“You know, that’s exactly the impression I got from them, but I didn’t want to say anything.”
“They’re not complicated people, Dad. They’ll just play the game for all it’s worth, and get the jobs they’re supposed to get, and marry the people they’re supposed to marry. Then one day they’ll die.”
My son, the philosopher.
“And they’ll be buried where they’re supposed to be buried,” I say. “You left that out.”
“Good point, Dad.”
“Listen, I want to know about this teacher, Edmondson. He’s really the one who started this whole mess.”
Jake rolls his eyes. “Edmondson’s an old fart who’s been there too long. He read what I wrote and he panicked. Don’t be pissed off at him. He’s just a frightened old man. He felt compelled to report what I’d written to Plymouth, another frightened man.” Jake gestures in the direction of the school. “You’d be surprised at how much fear there is in that place.”
“Fear?”
“Yeah, fear. Everybody’s hanging from a thread, or they think they are. But look what happens when you cut the thread, Dad. You don’t die. You don’t even get sick. You go to a diner and have a burger and fries.”
“Is that how it works?”
“Far as I can see.”
For the first time, I’m getting a little angry with him. He’s no longer in private school, but he’s still got that private school mentality, where you’re cocooned from the meteor shower that is the real world. It’s time to slice open the cocoon.
“Let me tell you how I see it,” I begin. “Right now I’m numb. But I have a feeling that when the numbness passes, I’m going to be scared.”
Jake stares at me. “Scared of what?”
“Oh, you know, the usual mundane things. Making a living. Taking care of you. Little things like that.”
“Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself.”
“Is that so?”
“You’ll see, Dad. Trust me.”
“Trust you with what?”
“I’ve got a plan.”
I laugh out loud. “You’ve been out of school for twenty minutes, and already you’ve got a plan?”
“It just came to me, in a flash. It’s a pretty damn good plan, too.”
“Jake. Don’t screw around.”
“I’m not!”
“All right, then. Care to share this great plan with me?”
“Not just yet, Dad. I’m still polishing it.”
“Polishing the plan?”
“Yeah. I need a little time. And for the moment, I’d just like to enjoy my meal.”
I’m dying to hear this plan, however ridiculous it might be, but I don’t push him. We don’t have much to say for the rest of the meal, which sits in my gut like lumps of lead. I finish eating before Jake does and I check the time. It’s barely three o’clock, and there’s no sign of any student life anywhere out on the street. They’ve all cleared off as if there’s been a bomb scare.
“I won’t ask you about your big plan,” I say, “but have you got any plans for tonight?”
Jake shrugs. “I was going to see my girlfriend. I’m not sure she’ll be my girlfriend anymore, after this.”
This is a girl I’ve been hearing about without ever meeting. I have to wait for Jake to make the occasional remark about her and assemble the remarks into a human being, like an archaeologist trying to piece together a civilization from a few shards of pottery. All I know is that she goes to a private school on the Upper East Side, and they met at a party a few months ago.
“You think she’d break up with you because you got kicked out?”
“Let’s just say it wouldn’t amaze me.”
“What’s her name again?”
“Sarah. What’s your girlfriend’s name these days, Dad?”
“At the moment I don’t have one.”
“Yeah, right.”
“It’s the truth.”
Actually, it’s not the truth. For the past month or so I have been dating (if that’s the right word, and I doubt that it is) a thirty-seven-year-old lawyer named Margie. Last night we got drunk together, and I remember her saying it would