Dear Dead Dad:
The past few days have been crazy. I had a big fight with Johanna the night before Thanksgiving. It was one of those we just ignored the next time we saw each other. For a smart girl she's pretty good at playing dumb sometimes. She's good at rationalizing-which is good, since I can be so irrational. Then I had a huge blowup with Mom on Thanksgiving. I'm still a little shook up by it all, but that is what you're here for. You and the Stroh Brewing Company can bring me down when I get too high and start me up when I get too low. Sometimes I wish I could just get stuck in neutral.
Before I met Johanna, Brad and me had made all these plans, all these promises to each other and to ourselves. I'm afraid of losing Johanna. I'm afraid of losing all of my dreams because of her. She had never been in the picture before, but now she is smack in the middle and impossible to ignore. I know everything we have shared has been true; those feelings are strong. But I know everything about my plans to leave here are just as true and just as strong. No wonder I sometimes drive in circles; I am trapped in a round maze, my dreams chasing my dreams. But sometimes I don't feel like a race-car driver; instead, I'm more like the guy walking the tightrope in the circus. Each day the tension in the rope is increasing, the winds of change are blowing harder, and my sense of balance is failing. Finally Mom pushed me over the edge.
We were celebrating Thanksgiving. I don't really know if that is the word you could use to describe our sad little dinner. Mom spent all morning working with folks from her church down at the homeless shelter, so she didn't have time to make us much of anything.
When Mom told me she wanted to talk, I knew it was trouble. We had worked out a good arrangement since you bolted. She prayed, and I stayed away. She loved Jesus and preached her sermons, while I threw fits and ranted. Quite the happy little household you left behind. But then, you didn't really think everything was going to be okay, did you? Who am I kidding? You couldn't have cared less.
"What do you want to talk about?" I asked.
"We need to talk about college." I looked up at her, but was searching for a hole to suddenly open up in that crappy little trailer that I could disappear into.
"What about it?" I mumbled through my food.
"I know that you have your heart set on attending Stanford." She wasn't looking at me; it wasn't a good sign. "I have told you many times that I would prefer that you attend Bethel or another Christian college."
I spit a piece of turkey onto my plate. "I don't think so."
"I know you don't want to attend those schools. This is a very hard decision for me."
"What is there to decide? I'm going to Stanford."
"Paul, there is just no money. When that man left, he left me with nothing but debts. That man just left, no note, no money, and no insurance when he finally died."
"Get over it! Dad's gone; get a new life." I threw my hands in the air. "This is bullshit!"
"You will not use that language in my house," she scolded me.
"Your house! Don't you mean your goddamned trailer!" I shouted back at her.
"How I pray for you, Paul."
"Don't waste your breath!" I stood up from the table.
"Please, Paul, sit down while we finish this meal."
I grabbed the tablecloth and pulled everything onto the floor. "There, it's finished!"
"You pick this up right now!" she shouted.
I just looked at her. "And if not? What are you going to do? What do you think you are going to do? You've already ruined my life!"
"I did not ruin your life. I love you, Paul." She bent down and started picking up the broken dishes. "There is just no money for you to go away to college."
I slammed my fist hard into the table, although I wanted it to be her face. "What am I going to tell Brad?"
"Paul, I love you. I am sorry. You should pray for guidance," she said.
"How do I face him? How do I face myself?" I knocked my chair onto the floor.
"You are just like that man," Mom said as she cleaned up the mess I left behind.
I ran right into my room and grabbed the phone. I punched in Brad's number so I could smash our plans. "Brad, listen—"
"Hello, bro," Brad answered. "Happy Thanksgiving!"
"Look, I got to tell you something," I was squeezing the phone so hard, I don't know how it didn't break in half.
"What's up, bro? Wedding bells? Shotgun shells?"
"No, it's something else. I'm serious." I was too angry to cry, too sad to scream.
"What's wrong?" Brad countered, realizing, for once, our conversation was not a laughing matter.
"I can't go to Stanford with you. I don't have the money. I let you down."
"Wait, we can figure something out I'm sure. A scholarship 55 or—I didn't let him finish. "I don't want to talk about it. Look, don't tell this to anyone, especially Johanna, okay?"
"No problem," Brad replied.
"I'll tell her when the time is right, just not now. I can trust you, right?" I asked Brad, even though I knew the answer.
"Of course you can, Paul. I am always with you, right or wrong," Brad said.
"That's good, because everything is going wrong." I said it without an ounce of emotion in my voice; all my energy had drained from my throat to my hands forming fists. I slammed the phone down, but that wasn't good enough. I grabbed the phone and hurled it against the wall.
I turned my bed over and started running into the wall. Slamming over and over and over again, until my shoulder was bleeding. I heard Mom banging on the door, but I didn't care. I unlocked the door, almost knocking Mom over as I ran out to the Firebird. I gunned it, hitting the interstate in record time, the pedal pushing the floor and the car shaking like it was ready to explode. I kept pushing down the pedal, but there was only so far and so fast I could go. I drove until I saw that city-limit sign out on Telegraph Road. I rolled down the window; the snow-filled air chilled me down to my Chucks. When I passed the city-limit sign, I didn't cue up "Thunder Road" or scream out in defiance like before; instead, I hurled my Bom to Run CD out the window and watched it smash against the pavement in this town for losers.
Did you do the same thing, Dad, the day you left town? Did you leave because your dreams didn't come true, either? Did you leave here because it became too much of a nightmare? I wish you would have taken me with you because I don't think I can do this on my own.