Lost December (8 page)

In spite of Candace’s disapproval, two weeks later I moved into Chez Sean. Living with Sean was a window to a whole new paradigm. Sean was naturally intelligent, maybe even a genius, but fundamentally lazy—a dangerous combination. He got good grades without ever studying. He was not ashamed of being lazy, rather, he wore it as a badge of honor, proclaiming himself ethically superior to the “poor working saps who sold their heartbeats to the devil of the marketplace.” On his refrigerator door was a sign which read,

Life was meant to be lived—
not feared, sold, nor sweated.
Fear not death. Fear the unlived life
.

The night I moved in, he raised a toast. “Let the masses cling to their sorry lives of quiet desperation. Let them rust in obscurity—we, my friend, shall be found among the living.”

Over the next year I learned what he meant by “living.”

When I was twelve years old, my father told me a story about boiling a frog. “If you throw a frog into boiling water,” he said, “It will jump out. But if you put the frog in a pot of warm water and slowly turn up the heat, it won’t notice the change and the frog will eventually boil to death.”

I think that Sean understood this principle instinctively. He was the flame and I was his frog. The changes in my life
came gradually, beginning with an occasional, casual invitation to a party here and there. Looking back, I’m certain that Sean purposely didn’t invite me to the wilder ones, knowing I would be uncomfortable and might avoid his future invitations. But it seemed that each party I went to got a little wilder. So did I.

Sean, as a matter of personal philosophy, tried everything that came his way and, in the lofty name of freedom, urged me to do likewise. Most of the time I didn’t. Most of the time I ignored his temptations. Most of the time. But not always.

My first fail was drinking too much. Both my father and I drank, occasionally, but never to excess. That changed. Sean drank a lot at home and I eventually began joining him. Only a little at first, then more and more. Everyone drank heavily at parties he took me to and soon I did too. For the first time in my life, I woke in a strange house with no idea of how I had got there.

One boring Tuesday night Sean and I got hammered in Chez Sean. There was no reason in particular—we just didn’t stop drinking. I had a class the next morning with Candace, and I walked in late with my head throbbing, desperately wishing that someone would dim the lights.

As I sat down, Candace said, “You smell like a liquor cabinet.”

“I took a shower,” I said.

“It’s like coming from your skin. You’re stinking up the room.”

I looked around me. A few other students were looking at
me. I looked back at her and shrugged. “What’s the big deal? I just had too much to drink last night.”

“Why were you drinking on a random Tuesday?”

“Sean and I …”

“Sean,” she said as if she needed no further explanation. She didn’t talk to me for the rest of the class.

Late that evening my father called me for the first time in months.

“How are you?” he asked. His voice was tight. Serious.

“I’m fine,” I answered tentatively. “How are you?”

“How are you handling the pressure of school?”

His tone worried me. “I’m doing fine,” I repeated. “Why?”

“I just got a call from Chuck. He said you were drunk in class this morning.” Chuck was my father’s friend, the one who had helped expedite my admission into Wharton.

“I wasn’t drunk.”

“Why would Chuck tell me that?”

“You have your friend spying on me?”

“Of course not. He heard it from your professor.”

“I told you, I wasn’t drunk.”

“He said the classroom smelled like booze.”

“That part may be true,” I said. “But I wasn’t drunk. I just had a lot to drink the night before.”

“What’s going on, Luke?”

“Nothing’s going on. I just drank too much. It’s not like you don’t drink.”

“I don’t walk into board meetings stinking of booze. How often are you drinking?”

“Why are you interrogating me?” I snapped. “I’m old enough to be making my own decisions without you checking up on me.”

My response seemed to stun him. He was silent for a moment then said, “You’re right. I just care about you.”

I took a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” I said. “But I’m fine.” More silence. Finally I said, “I need to go.”

“I love you, Luke.”

“All right,” I said and hung up.

Things had changed between us even more than I realized. Or maybe I had changed more than I realized. I had never talked to my father like that before. I set down my phone, then dropped my head into my hands.

Sean had overheard my conversation and walked into the room carrying a can of beer. “Who was that?”

“My father. Someone at Wharton called him and told him I was drunk in class this morning.”

“You weren’t drunk,” he said. “A little hungover, but not drunk.”

“I shouted at my dad.”

Sean grinned. “Welcome to my world.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. “It’s not my world.”

“It happens,” he said.

“Not to me,” I said. “Do you even have any contact with your parents?”

“My mother,” he said. “She’s the one who keeps me in the green. My father disowned me.”

“What happened?”

“Same old story. He was never around when I was growing up. When he was, we fought. A few years ago, on Christmas Eve, we had a big fight in front of like fifty of his guests. I called him a vulture capitalist. He responded by telling me what a disappointment I was to him as a son.

“I said, ‘You don’t think being your son is a disappointment?’ He said ‘Fine. Have it your way. I wash my hands of you.’”

I honestly couldn’t think of anything worse. “What did you say to that?”

He looked at me with dark eyes. “I thanked him.”

“You thanked him?”

“I meant it. It was liberating. I was tired of him orchestrating my life, telling me what I was going to do and be. I was tired of the strings that came with his money. I hadn’t sold my soul to the devil, I had leased it.”

“How did your mother respond?”

“My mother was his first trophy wife. By then he was on to trophy wife number two, so she shares my enmity.” He took a drink from his beer. “What about you? Daddy’s got it all figured out for you too? Got the master plan?”

“My father’s not making me do anything,” I said.

“But he’s kept you close to the business, hasn’t he? Groomed you to be the heir? The next
him”
.

I didn’t answer.

“I thought so,” Sean said. “I’m not saying he’s my father. I’m just saying it’s the natural law—fathers creating their sons in their own image. It’s a Judeo-Christian archetype. You see
it in the cathedral, as well as on the Little League baseball diamond. You see it every day at Wharton.” He hit me on the shoulder. “So when you finish here, is that the next act? Going home to mind the family store?”

“That’s what my father wants.” I felt infantile saying that.

“What do
you
want?”

I slowly shook my head. “I’m not sure anymore.”

Sean leaned close. “That’s a dangerous place to be, my friend. The undecided get swept away by the momentum of the decided. I can see it now, you’ll graduate from Wharton, then go back to the desert, settle down with the little woman, plant a garden in the graveyard out back and watch yourself grow fat and arthritic on a domestic death march.”

“That’s how it goes?” I said, annoyed by his cynicism.

“Far as I can see. People don’t really live longer these days, they just die slower. We’ve traded the American dream for a charge card at the local Home Depot. What a crock.”

“What are your plans when you graduate?”

“My plans,” he said. “Marshall, Lucy and I are going to get drunk in seven countries.”

“Why seven?”

“It’s my lucky number,” he said. “I figure by that point I’ll have vomited up all the crap they’ve forced down my throat the last eighteen years of American capitalist indoctrination. Then I’m going to just get drunk for the sheer debauchery of it.” He looked at me. “You should come with us. You’ve got plenty of time to die the slow death.”

“You’re dismal tonight.”

“Come with us.”

“I have Candace.”

“Bring her. Show her life before she gives birth to creatures she loves more than you and you’re relegated to the status of beast of burden.”

“You are past dismal.”

“You know I’m telling the truth. Give life a chance.”

“You sound like an infomercial for Hedonists International,” I said. “Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we may die.”

“There’s no ‘may’ about it. Tomorrow we
will
die.” He pointed at me with the hand holding his can. “The only real sin that exists in this life is the waste of possibility. The rest of our sins are just part of the learning curve. God, if there is such a thing, rejoices in our passion. It’s the lukewarm He spits from His mouth. You can read it in the Bible.” Sean leaned in close. “I know you, Luke. You’re special. Marshall and Lucy may talk like freethinkers, but they’re not. In the end, you’ll find them washed up on the beach of circumstance with the rest of the conformists. But you, my friend, have the potential of doing something spectacular with your allotted time—to be a beacon of hope to the yoked, desperate masses, a light on the hill of possibility. You owe it to the world.”

I laughed at his flattery. “I have nothing to offer the world.”

Sean’s expression turned serious. “Don’t ever let anyone tell you that. Don’t sell your soul to the devils of obscurity. What about
your
dreams? Do you even know what they are anymore?”

I didn’t answer, which I suppose was an answer in itself.

He slowly shook his head. “The world is yours, Luke. At least check it out before you throw it away.”

I stood. “I’m going to bed,” I said.

Sean just stared at me. “Think about coming with us. Just think about it.”

As a species we care less about the truth than our agendas.
We really don’t want to know the truth. We must not.
Why else would we work so hard to hide from it?

Luke Crisp’s Diary