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.�
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“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.”
CHAPTER
Eleven
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
Drinking wasn’t my only new vice. Sean was a self-proclaimed “chick magnet,” which, from my observation, seemed to be true. For whatever reason, women flocked to him and he was always willing to share from his excess. At first I refused his offers, citing my loyalty to Candace, which Sean found naïve. “You’re not married. You’re not even engaged,” he said, later adding, “The man who doesn’t sow his oats when he’s young, will do so when he’s old.”
If you pound at anything long enough, it’s bound to fracture. One evening, about six months after moving in with Sean, I broke. Candace was busy that night, so I went with Sean to a UPenn party he’d found out about. I drank too much and ended up spending the night with a coed whose name I didn’t even know. The next morning I woke filled with burning shame. When I told Sean that I was going to confess to Candace, he erupted. “Don’t be stupid. What good could possibly come of that?”
“She would want to know the truth,” I said.
“Is that really why? Or are you just trying to shift your pain to her?”
“What are you talking about?” I said.
“All you’ll do is turn your guilt into her broken heart and ruin the best thing you’ve got going. You were drunk. If you’re not willing to give yourself a break, then at least give her one.”
I never told Candace, though I think she suspected something. That evening at dinner she looked at me with a peculiar expression, as if something were different but she couldn’t put her finger on it. “You’re not yourself tonight.”
“It’s nothing,” I said forcefully enough to convince her otherwise. “I just have a headache.”
“Do you need an Advil?”
“I’m okay,” I said.
“I called you last night. You never answered.”
I poked at my dinner, avoiding her gaze. “I was out with Sean,” I said. “We were drinking.”
“I called you this morning too. Where were you?”
“I told you, we were drinking. I was just sleeping it off.”
I must have looked guilty, because she looked at me for a minute, then she asked, “Is there anything else you want to tell me?”
Anger at her question rose within me. I snapped at her, “Enough with the interrogation, already!”
She flinched. “I’m sorry. I just wish you’d stop drinking so much.”
“I know,” I said.
“Sean’s not good for you.”
“I know,” I said again.
We went back to our meal as if nothing had happened.
CHAPTER
Twelve
Guilt makes strangers of us all.
Luke Crisp’s Diary
As graduation neared, I was filled with a myriad of emotions, all of which seemed to contribute to the chasm that had developed between my father and me.
Of course time and distance played their part in our rift, but the biggest reason took a much wiser and older me to understand. Perhaps it’s an archetype, like Adam hiding from God after partaking of the fruit, but on some level I believe that I was hiding from my father because of whom I had become. In spite of my outward denials, to myself as well as to others, I carried an enormous amount of guilt for my choices—and guilt always estranges us. The truth was, I was afraid of my father’s rejection, so I rejected him first.
A month before graduation Mary, my father’s assistant, called me.
“Luke, it’s Mary. Your father wanted me to call about your graduation. We need to make his travel arrangements.”
I hesitated. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Don’t worry about what?”
“Attending the graduation ceremony. It’s not important. I’ll be home a few days after anyway.”
Mary sounded vexed. “It’s important to your father. He’s very proud of you.”
“Tell him that I appreciate the sentiment, but if it’s all the same, I’d rather not make a big deal over it.”
She was quiet for a moment, then said, “All right. I’ll tell him.”
I don’t know if I’d hurt my father’s feelings or if he was just respecting my wishes, but my father never called to talk me out of it.
A few hours after our graduation ceremony the Wharton 6 gathered for a final session at Smokey Joe’s.
“So what’s going down tonight?” Marshall asked, nursing a tall beer. Lucy stood behind him, her arms wrapped around him.
“There’s a party on Delancey Street,” Sean said. “A night of pure debauchery.” He turned to James. “You’ll want to sit this one out.”
“Thanks for the warning,” James said.
Actually, I was kind of surprised to see James, as he hadn’t been around for a while.
“What do you think?” I asked Candace. “Want to go?”
She frowned. “Remember, my mother’s in town.”
“Oh yeah,” I said. I had no interest in spending graduation night hanging out with Candace’s mother. Neither did Candace for that matter.
Marshall said, “Hang with us, Luke. Let’s go out with a bang.”
“Yes, Luke, give in to the dark side,” Sean said. “I am your father, Luke.”
“C’mon,” Lucy said. “It will be fun.”
I looked at Candace for permission. She said, “Do what you want.”
“All right,” I said to Sean. “I’m in.”
“Great,” he said.
“Awesome,” Marshall said. “The final stand of the Wharton 6 minus James. And Candace. And, whoever else doesn’t show up.”
As we were all leaving Smokey Joe’s, James grabbed my shoulder. “Hey, are you really going to that party?”
“Yeah. Why don’t you join us?”
“No, I’m not into that junk.”
“What junk?”
“People throwing up. Brawling. Waking up in strange places with stranger people. I thought I’d get some people together—grill some steaks, watch 24.”
“Sounds like you’ve got a plan,” I said.
“Why don’t you come?” he asked. “It will be fun.”
“Sorry, I already committed.”
“I’m upping the ante,” James said. “I’ll make my sautéed mushrooms in burgundy wine sauce. Can’t beat my burgundy ‘shrooms.”
“Sorry, James.”
“I really can’t talk you into it?”
“No. Let’s get pancakes in the morning. We’ll go to IHOP, my treat.”
He looked dejected. “In the morning? Think you’ll be up for it?”
“Just not too early,” I said.
He forced a smile. “Okay, man. But if you change your mind, call me.”
“I will. Thanks.”
As I watched him walk away, something told me to go with him. I almost did. I should have. Both of our lives would have been different if I had.
CHAPTER
Thirteen
They say that life is what happens to you
when you’re making other plans.
So is death.
Luke Crisp’s Diary
For once, the party wasn’t all Sean claimed it would be. As usual, he was drunk by eleven and left the party with some young blonde who looked like she was barely eighteen. Lucy and Marshall left a half hour later. I stayed and drank and listened to some woman tell me why she’d dumped her boyfriend—an agonizingly long prelude to informing me that she was available and desperate. I wished I had gone with James. I wished I had gone with Candace for that matter. It was a wasted night.
I woke the next morning to Candace shaking me. “Luke, wake up.”
I rolled over in bed and opened my eyes. The morning light glared through my window and my head throbbed from too many beers. Then I realized that Sean, Marshall, Lucy and Candace were all standing above me.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Did you hear about James?” Candace asked.
“James? We’re supposed to get pancakes this morning.”
Candace looked over at Marshall. The look on their faces troubled me.
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