Eight months ago
The first person I called from the emergency room was Oscar. Not Dad. My fingers just auto-tapped his number. There was no way I could’ve spoken to Dad right out of the gate. The situation was a shit show. So, like I said, the cops found the weed, I failed the Breathalyzer test, and I needed major reconstructive surgery on my knee. After my MRI, they said I had the “unhappy triad of the knee.” The specialist they called in nodded when I asked him if this would affect lacrosse.
Shit.
Show.
I lost it, cursing and punching the bed. The doctor actually took a step back, and two nurses appeared out of nowhere. “Vance! Calm down,” the one nurse kept shouting. I tossed my head back, closed my eyes, and tried to catch my breath. My thoughts were as messy as my knee—reliving the ugly parts, jumping from thing to thing. The fight, the pain, having to face my dad, the look on the doctor’s face.
Once I was sure the adults were out of the room, I opened my eyes. The first thing that came to mind was: I couldn’t lose lacrosse.
My whole future was linked to it. So was my happiness. Being out on the field made everything disappear—Mom’s death, Dad’s drinking, Oscar’s miserableness. I needed lacrosse. Really, Dad’s happiness was also linked to it. The only time he smiled lately was when he watched me play.
The doctor let me have my fit, and then he clarified, “Not forever. But you’ve torn your anterior cruciate ligament, medial collateral ligament, and your medial meniscus. Your injury is severe. I’d count next season out. Lacrosse is a spring sport, right?”
With my jaw clenched and air shooting from my nostrils, I nodded.
“You’ll still be in rehab next spring. Are your parents on the way?”
I gave him a blank stare and bobbed my head again. When he left, I immediately called Oscar.
After sharing the disaster I was in, it became a breathe-off on the phone between me and Oscar. He broke the silence first. “The police are going to ask for some sort of identification, Vance.”
This was the technicality I couldn’t figure out. “What about Joey or Bill? Couldn’t they pretend to be Dad?”
“I’m certain the authorities will require some form of valid identification.”
He was right. “I can’t tell him, Oscar. I just can’t.” Deep down, I knew this was the real reason I’d called my brother. Yes, Dad was normally pretty laid-back, and he’d taken my vodka suspension in stride, but this was uncharted territory. I’d never been arrested before.
I wanted Oscar to be the one to tell our father how badly I’d fucked up. How I’d just destroyed his one positive escape.
Now all Dad had was vodka.
Oscar absorbing my dad’s potential anger—shooting the messenger, kind of—could help ease the blow for me. Maybe hearing that I needed surgery and months of rehab would trigger Dad’s sympathy. He’d be so worried about me that there’d be no way he’d get that pissed.
“Despite your selfish motivation for me dropping the bomb, Vance, I will tell Dad. But you owe me.”
Awesome. Easier for me. He didn’t say no! There was no way he was doing this out of the kindness of his heart. “What do you want?”
Oscar didn’t answer for a few seconds. “I’m not sure yet.”
“Fine.” Whatever he wanted I could handle. “Why are you doing this for me?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
• • •
Dad went to the police station first, paid the underage drinking fine of five hundred fifty dollars, found out my court date for the weed possession, picked me up from the ER, and drove me straight to the Sports Medicine Center at Jefferson in Philly. He didn’t say a single word to me. That was a first. He and I always talked. Talking with Dad was something that came easy for both of us.
His silent treatment freaked me out so much that I couldn’t sleep during the long drive. Miles and miles whizzed by, and my stomach refused to chill out. I swear I almost puked when we hit the Walt Whitman Bridge.
Growler offered to drive my car home, but not for, like, a while. One of the jealous dick’s friends broke his nose, so his mom wanted him to rest. His mom also said he wasn’t allowed to hang out with me anymore. She said Dad was raising me to be a wild animal. She hated me that much. I hated when adults were all high and mighty, acting like they never made a mistake when they were younger. Teenagers were wired to fuck up. Duh.
Growler said she’d calm down after the dust settled, and he’d get her to change her mind about the no-Vance rule. How could she stop us from hanging at school? Her new rule was dumb.
The orthopedic surgeon at Jefferson saw me so fast because he knew Dad. He lived in West Chester and came into the Blue Mountain sometimes. I didn’t recognize him, but he was a good guy, a real straight shooter. He said my knee was “mangled” and one of the nastiest unhappy triads he’d ever seen. He preferred I was admitted rather than going home. He said doing the surgery sooner rather than later would only help me in the long run with lacrosse. So he had it scheduled for the next morning.
Dad didn’t speak to me until we were alone in the room. He shouted, “I am so angry right now I could choke you!”
My whole body jerked, including my leg. “Ahhhh, shit.”
“You feel that pain! You deserve it.”
Wow, so he definitely wasn’t taking the sympathy route. He’d never yelled at me like that. I blew out a long breath and tried changing the direction of the conversation. “Good thing there’s a week of summer vacation left, right?”
He acted like I hadn’t said a word. “You will work off the seventeen hundred dollars you owe me at the bar. Let’s get that clear.”
“Seventeen hundred?” I yelled.
Without looking at me he said, “Five hundred and fifty dollars for the underage drinking fine, fifty dollars in gas, thousand-dollar emergency room copay from Shore Memorial Hospital, hundred-dollar specialist copay for the guy you just saw. Seventeen hundred. Do the math.”
There went any dough I wanted to save for college spending money. “I’ll work it off,” I said boldly.
He shook his head. “You think you have all the answers, don’t you, Vance? Well, guess what, son. You don’t know shit.”
I knew better than to respond. Not when he was this angry.
Dad stared out the window, but he had more to say. “I’m canceling our trip to Jamaica. You don’t deserve it.”
Shit. “Aw, Dad, come on.” That was my graduation present. I already told everyone about it. How embarrassing.
“You think I’m going to waste thousands of dollars on you? After this bullshit you just pulled? And since I’m blowing your mind with bad news, I’ll keep it going. There’s no way Drexel won’t find out about this. Especially the drug charges. Your scholarship will be no more. And when that happens, know this: you’re on your own for tuition. I’ll move your college fund over to Oscar. Maybe he’ll get into Harvard or Yale or some shit. Who knows? But you will have to shoot much lower next time around.” He rubbed his neck and blew air out. “I’ve gotta get back to the bar. Anything you’d like me to pick up from home and bring back tomorrow morning?”
He was just venting. He wouldn’t give my college fund to Oscar. Would he? I clenched my jaw. Maybe he would. Losing Drexel would destroy me, and it would definitely kill Dad. Hearing the news of my scholarship had made him so happy. He’d made this huge spaghetti-and-meatball dinner to celebrate. The two of us jammed to reggae and danced around the kitchen, and we didn’t even stop when stick-in-the-mud Oscar came in whining that it was too loud for him to do his math homework. Dad told him to do the homework later and come join us. Oscar threw his hands in the air and marched upstairs. Dad shrugged and turned it up, and we laughed until we couldn’t breathe.
I couldn’t rob him of that happiness.
Dad stood up and crossed his arms. “And it was real shitty of you to dump your disaster onto your brother’s shoulders. He gave himself a wicked tension headache over having to tell me about the mess you were in. I have never been more pissed off at you than right now. How could you do this to me?”
Shit, he might never forgive me.
“Thank God your mother isn’t here to watch your downward spiral. Saying you want to be a bartender, getting shit-faced on vodka at a dance, and now this crap. Jesus, Vance. What, are you trying to turn out like me?”
He was bringing up Mom? That was a low, low blow. My stomach flattened with the sudden weight of her absence.
I needed “party Dad” to show up.
The guy who clinked my shot glass at the Blue Mountain. The guy who told me life was too short to worry about “stupid shit.” Why couldn’t he have been there? He’d understand this mistake.
Dad’s face was practically purple, and beads of sweat formed on his upper lip. He looked me square in the eye and said, “You straight-up just ruined your entire future.”