Beautiful Boy (13 page)

Nic spends as much time as possible away from home. He hangs out with a crowd of local boys who are obvious stoners. I confront Nic, but he denies that he is using anything. He is smart enough to justify some outrageous behavior with convincing lies, and he is getting better at covering his tracks. When I discover his dishonesty, I'm confounded because I still think that we are close—closer than most fathers and their sons. Eventually he admits that he is using some drugs "like everyone," "just pot," and only "once in a while." He promises that he never gets into a car with anyone who is high. My advice, pleading, and anger fall on deaf—stoned—ears. He continues to reassure me: "It's no big deal. It's harmless. Don't worry."

"It's not always harmless," I say, repeating a well-worn lecture. "It can become a problem. For some people. I know people who started smoking a little but became potheads and..."

Nic rolls his eyes.

"It's true," I continue. "Their ambition was drained because of decades of marijuana smoking." I tell him about another ex-friend, one who was never able to hold down a job and never had a relationship that lasted longer than a month or two. "He once told me, 'I've lived in a cloud of smoke and television since I was thirteen, so maybe it's not surprising that things haven't turned out better for me.' "

"You smoked tons of pot," Nic says. "You're a great one to talk."

"I wish I hadn't," I say.

"You worry too much," he replies dismissively.

On a visit to my parents' for a family party in Arizona, Nic and I go for a walk around the block. Since I lived here, the palm trees have grown thin and absurdly tall, like giraffes with preposterously long necks. A few of the homes have been remodeled with second stories. Otherwise, our street appears the same. I remember when Nic and I took this identical route when he was two or three. I led him with a rope tied to a small plastic car with Nic in the driver's
seat. We went to Chaparral Park, where he pulled on the imaginary handbrake, opened the door, and carefully shut it, before running toward the shore of the man-made lake. There he fed pieces of bread to ducks and geese. A ratty old goose bit his finger and Nic wailed.

I know that I am losing Nic, but I still rationalize it: it's typical of adolescents to drift away from their parents—to become surly and distant. "You've got to wonder what Jesus was like at seventeen," Anne Lamott wrote. "They don't even talk about it in the Bible, he was apparently so awful." Still, I try to break through, to get Nic to talk, but he doesn't have much to say.

Finally he turns to me and matter-of-factly asks if I want to smoke some pot. I eye him. Is he testing me, asserting his independence, or trying to reach out—to connect? Maybe all those things.

He pulls out a joint, lights it, and passes it to me. I stare a minute. I still smoke pot, albeit rarely. I may go to a party or a friend's house where pot is smoked as casually as wine is served with dinner. On such occasions, I take a hit. Or two.

But this is different. And yet I accept the joint, thinking—rationalizing—that it's not unlike a father in a previous generation sharing a beer with his seventeen-year-old son, a harmless, bonding moment. I inhale, smoking with him as we walk through my old neighborhood. We talk and laugh and the tension between us melts away.

But it returns. That evening we're right back where we were. Nic is the belligerent, annoyed teenager, miffed at having been dragged to Arizona. I'm the overwrought, worried, and in many ways inept parent. Should I have smoked with him? Of course not. I'm desperate—way too desperate—to connect with him. It's not a very good excuse.

Nic agrees to see a new therapist, one recommended to us as a genius when it comes to working with adolescent boys. Even as we arrive for Nic's appointment, he is filled with unease and a tinge of disgust at the prospect of meeting another shrink. The therapist is tall with a slight stoop, heavyset, and has intense blue eyes. He and Nic shake hands and they disappear together.

An hour later, Nic emerges with a smile and color in his cheeks
and a spring in his step for the first time in a while. "That was amazing," he says. "He's different from the others."

Nic begins weekly after-school sessions, though he misses some. Karen and I meet with the therapist, too. In one session, he maintains that college will straighten Nic out. It's a laughable notion—when has the freshman year of college straightened anyone out? And yet I can only hope he's right.

On a sunny late spring afternoon, Vicki comes up and she, Karen, Daisy, Jasper, and I attend Nic's high school graduation. The ceremony is held on the athletic field. Nic has been upset since his class elected to wear caps and gowns. Karen and I will be disappointed, but not surprised, if he doesn't show up. But he does. With his hair freshly buzzed, in cap and gown, Nic marches forward and accepts his diploma from the school head, kissing her cheek. He seems jubilant. I leap on each small sign that he might be all right. I think, Maybe. Maybe everything will be fine after all.

Following the ceremony, we invite his friends over for a barbecue. A long table is set underneath a dogwood in full pink flower. In the middle of dinner, during the passing of platters of food, Nic and his friends are up and down and inside and out. Then they say goodbye and leave for the "Safe and Sober" grad-night bash being held at a local recreation center. His friends drop him home late that night—Nic, my high school graduate, who, when I ask about the party, beelines past me into his bedroom, muttering, "I'm exhausted. Good night."

In summer, there is no more pretense of restraint on Nic's part. It is obvious by his erratic behavior and mood swings that he is often high and that marijuana is being supplemented by other drugs. My threats, punishments, and threats of more severe punishments are useless. Nic occasionally reacts with concern and remorse, but more often with disgust. I have become inconsequential. I don't see what more I can do other than warn him, negotiate and enforce curfews, deny him the use of the car, and continue to drag him to the therapist, even as he becomes increasingly furtive, argumentative, and reckless.

We still go to Nancy and Don's for Wednesday night dinners.
The adults gather in the kitchen while the grandchildren are usually downstairs in a basement crowded with stored furniture and hanging kayaks and a Folbot, playing Ping-Pong. Or they are swinging in the living room. Nancy and Don's is the only house I have ever seen with a swing inside. It has thick ropes hanging from a rafter beam and a canvas seat. Sometimes the kids use the swing set as a launching pad in a bowling game. First they stack multicolored cardboard bricks into elaborate towers. Then they aim Daisy, sitting on the swing and holding onto the ropes, and let her fly.

A great wooden island with a six-burner range is the main feature in Nancy's kitchen. There's usually something cooking on it, and the room exudes delicious and exotic and occasionally burned odors of whatever recipe Nancy found in the newspaper, the latest Peggy Knickerbocker cookbook, or
Gourmet.
One night yellow chicken curry is served with white jasmine rice, raita made with yogurt and cucumbers, mango chutney, and Indian flatbread flavored with cardamom. Another menu includes a bubbling Mexican casserole with green chilies and cheese. Or roast pork stewed with lemons and prunes, crispy potatoes, and Brussels sprouts fried with pancetta. When it's time to eat, the kids choose their favorite ceramic plates, each with a different animal on it. Jasper always chooses the whale. Daisy and their cousin fight over the dog until Daisy relents, settling on the donkey.

Nic still seems to enjoy these festive evenings. But tonight he is acting strangely. He's in the kitchen, uttering a series of non sequiturs. "Why
shouldn't
people have sex with whoever they want when they want? Monogamy is an archaic convention," he lectures Nancy, who listens as she stirs a boiling pot on the stove. "Dr. Seuss is a
genius.
" He goes on for a while about his latest, frenzied, incoherent philosophies of the type I imagine him spouting late into the night with his friends.

Later, however, it dawns on me that Nic must have been on something. In the morning, I ask him. He denies it. I once again threaten him, but my threats are meaningless. I forbid him to use drugs, but this, too, is useless. When we consult his therapist, he advises me against barring drugs from our house, saying, "If you forbid them, he'll just sneak it. His drug use will go underground, and you will have lost him. It's safer to have him home."

Friends and friends of friends offer contradictory advice: Kick him out, don't let him out of your sight. I think: Kick him out? What chance will he have then? Don't let him out of my sight?
You
try corralling a seventeen-year-old on drugs.

It is a tranquil midsummer evening, just before his eighteenth birthday. I arrive home and sense that something is amiss. Slowly I realize that Nic is gone, and he has robbed the house of cash, food, and a case of wine. He was selective. He took only very good wine. I am in a panic. I call his therapist, who in spite of this episode reassures me that Nic will be all right, that he is appropriately "exercising his independence." If his rebellion is extreme, it is because I have made it difficult for Nic to have anything to rebel against.

Finally someone has said it: so it
is
my fault that Nic has been increasingly sullen and shadowy and taking drugs and is now lying and stealing. I was too lenient. I am ready to bear this judgment, to accept that I have blown it, though I do wonder about the children in trouble whose parents were overly strict and those who were far more lenient than me and yet whose children appear to be fine.

Nic is gone two days before he calls. Apparently, he and his friends are in Death Valley, on a Kerouacian odyssey fueled by drugs and liquor. I demand that he return home. He does, and I ground him. We make an arrangement whereby he will work to pay me back for the thievery. (I do not hold my breath.)

"You're always trying to control me!" Nic shrieks one evening when I tell him he can't go out during the period he is grounded. He is dressed in baggy green pants held up with a cloth army belt and a white shirt with rolled-up sleeves.

"I've given you ample freedom. You abused it."

"Fuck you." He repeats it with venom. "Fuck you." He storms off to his bedroom, slamming the door.

Karen and I have a session with Nic in the therapist's office, a small and comfortable room with a pair of cushioned chairs. Nic sits morosely opposite us, flopped on a couch. The therapist does his best to orchestrate a civil conversation, but Nic is irascible and defensive, minimizing my concerns as stupid and overprotective. He once again lashes out at us for trying to control him.

Afterward, but only afterward, I conclude once again that Nic
must have been high. When I call to ask the therapist for his opinion, he says, "Maybe, but adolescent hostility is normal. It's good that he has permission to get it out with you. It's healthy."

We agree to a follow-up session, which is more civil. Nic apologizes and says that he had been angry. He goes so far as to assure us that his partying—he admits to "modest" partying—is a prelude to the hard work of college. "I feel as if I deserve it," he says. "I worked hard in high school."

"You never worked that hard."

"Well, I'll be working hard when I start college. I understand what a great opportunity it is. I won't blow it."

Of course I still want to believe him. I don't think it's simply that I am gullible, but I cannot fathom the implications of his behavior. When change takes place gradually, it's difficult to comprehend its meaning.

It is a fortnight later, on Sunday afternoon, and Karen plans to take all three kids to the beach. I am on deadline, so I'm staying home to write.

The fog has lifted, and I am with them in the driveway, helping pack the car. Our friends who are joining them pull up in their car. Next, two county sheriff's patrol cars pull up. When a pair of uniformed officers approach, I think they need directions, but they walk past me and head for Nic. They handcuff his wrists behind his back, push him into the backseat of one of the squad cars, and drive away.

Jasper, who is six, is the only one of us who responds appropriately. He wails, inconsolable for an hour.

The arrest is the result of Nic's failure to appear in court after being cited for marijuana possession, an infraction he forgot to tell me about. Still, I bail him out. "This is the only time," I say. I am confident that the arrest will teach him a lesson.

Nic is moody, but he holds down a job as a barista, pulling espressos and steaming milk in a coffee store in Mill Valley. We go in sometimes—Karen, Jasper, Daisy, and I. Nic stands behind the counter, greeting us with a big smile. He introduces the kids to the rest of the crew and then whips up tall cups of hot chocolate with downy peaks of whipped cream for them.

Nic regales us with workplace stories. He has come to know many regular customers, who fall into one of several categories. "Smarges" order small coffees in large cups. As he explains it, smarges know that the baristas fill up the large cup, so they get extra coffee for free, saving a quarter. "Why bothers" want cappuccinos made with decaffeinated espresso and fat-free milk. "Quads" are maniacs who order quadruple espressos. Unpleasant customers pay dearly for their rudeness. Nic and his coworkers avenge themselves by intentionally mixing up orders, so any particularly nasty customer who specifies decaf gets double shots of leaded espresso, while ones who order regular coffee receive decaf.

Nic dotes on Jasper and Daisy as much as ever. One morning, in an impish mood, Nic does his Agnes Moorehead impersonation—the one from
Pollyanna
—but this time his audience is Daisy.

"Missy, you have a stuffy little nose!"

How often have we been furious with Nic but then have found ourselves disarmed by his kindness and humor? How can both Nics, the loving and considerate and generous one, and the self-obsessed and self-destructive one, be the same person?