by Don Zolidis
“That seems wise,” I said.
“You pick your own future,” said Marketa. “You get to be who you want to be.”
Who did I want to be?
I wanted to be the kind of guy who writes his girlfriend a letter at one thirty in the morning. So that’s what I did.
Dear Amy,
Greetings from GAC! (It sounds like a cat is puking up a hairball.)
It’s almost one thirty in the morning (I suppose you probably figured that out since you can read my helpful time stamp thingie at the top of this letter), and I am sitting in a dorm room after a harrowing and crazy evening spent ditching lunatics and hiding in bathrooms. College seems like it’s going to be a lot of fun. Terrifying fun. But it’s all good, and I’m still alive, which is a bonus. I’ll tell you all about it when I get home on Sunday. Actually, I might be home before you get this letter, so if I’ve already told you about it, you already know what I’m talking about, in which case this will no longer seem that interesting.
Anyway, I wanted to write you because I wanted to put my thoughts on paper and what better way to do that than to write a letter to my awesome girlfriend?
By the way, it’s crazy, but I miss you. I know I’ve been away for five days, but I missed talking to you tonight. Maybe this letter is a way of talking to you. I kept on imagining walking around campus and wondering what you would think of it. Like, I had a tiny Amy hanging out on top of my head, riding me like one of those people who rides elephants on a hookah. Howdah. Howdah. Riding a hookah would be a different thing. Also, I realized I just wrote that you would be riding on top of my head and that sounded very weird but please forgive me, it’s very late and my brain is not firing on all cylinders.
But it’s amazing here. I mean, the class I went to was all about this theory of structuralism, which is basically how every story is kind of the same when it comes down to the bare bones of it. It’s pretty amazing to think that human beings have been telling the same kinds of stories for thousands of years. I’m sure you would have some theories on that. It was like, “Oh, this is what learning is supposed to be. Huh. I wondered. Are there going to be any multiple-choice questions on this?”
And the campus is beautiful. Some of the trees still have their leaves on them, so it’s like this golden and scarlet paradise. There were teams of Canada geese flying overhead and honking. I wish I could show it to you. (The AP English in me is like, nice use of sensory language, Craig, it really gives you a sense of place.) It even smelled nice. Like the day before winter.
By the way, I’m in a room with three girls at the moment. (Oh wait, they are women. I have been instructed that in college these are now women, not girls.) And one of them has said that my letter-writing
Hi. My name is Marketa and I’m stealing Craig’s letter for a moment to let you know that Craig is very cool.
This is Melanie and I’m stealing this from Marketa and I wanted to let you know that you’ve found one of the good ones. Seriously. Men are assholes. Almost all of them. And this guy seems all right.
I’m back. I didn’t pay them to write that. They are genuinely moved by my bizarre decision to write you a letter at two in the morning. Clearly, I am a keeper.
I’ll tell you about the hunting trip when I get back, but at the moment I am blocking it from my mind because of its horribleness. Just know that I did not kill any deer, and I probably saved a few deer’s lives by being loud and obnoxious in the woods. Am I a hero? Probably.
I should sleep.
In conclusion, it’s pretty great here, but not as great as you.
I’ve got your senior picture in my wallet, and I take it out and look at it, which is really dorky and probably a little stalkerish, I guess. But I love looking at it. You have really pretty blue eyes, and they made you tilt your head just a bit to the side, like you were listening to the ground. But I still like that because I imagine you’re looking at me.
So I like your eyes. And I like your hair. And I love the way you kind of dance with your hands out when you’re listening to music. But, mostly, I like the way you think. I love thinking with you. And I hope we get to do a lot more of it.
Kind of a weird way to end a letter, I admit, but I’m officially out of good ideas.
I can’t wait to see you and talk to you again.
Craig.
About an hour into the ride, the conversation began.
“So what are you thinking?” he said.
“I don’t know. What are you thinking?”
Dad turned the radio station to country music. Someone was singing about drinking beer by the riverbank in the moonlight. I believe there was also a mention of pretty girls in there too.
“So…did you like, um…that college?”
“GAC?”
“That can’t be its name.”
“Gustavus Adolphus.”
“Yeah. That. With the girl and the shirt.”
“Yeah, actually. Um…I mean, I think it’s at the top of my list.”
Dad sighed audibly. Like a giant, my-son-is-a-dumbass-and-is-going-to-ruin-my-life sigh. “You know I’ve always had a policy of letting you make your own mistakes.”
I smiled. “I’m pretty sure it’s not a mistake.”
“Right. Of course. Sure. Well…it’s your life. If you decide that…a place like that is where you want to spend four years of your life, then…then we will try to make that happen.”
“Great.”
“Good.”
An uncomfortable silence sank in. Dad turned off the radio.
“It’s just…okay, um…it’s a lot of money.”
“Yeah. Definitely.”
“A lot of money. More than your sister is getting to go to UW, so…”
“Well, I can apply for financial aid. And there’s our college savings, so we should be able to do it, right?”
Dad looked down.
“I don’t know, Craig. I don’t know.”
And then something very strange began to happen to my dad. From an outside observer, it would appear that he was experiencing…emotions. I had seen emotions in other humans before, particularly my mom, but they hadn’t made much of an appearance in my dad’s life before.
“So I need to tell you something,” he sighed. “And I haven’t told your mother this yet, but…there’s going to be layoffs in December. And…I have been told—nothing is final yet—but I have been told…that…”
He stopped there. His hand went up to his chin and scratched his face.
It felt like we were driving through a tunnel. The light faded out a bit. What did this mean? My dad had worked at Parker Pen since he had gotten out of high school. He’d been there forever. He was a senior manager or something. I couldn’t imagine him without a place to go every day.
“So…so things might um…be changing here.”
He stretched out his hand and gripped my shoulder. “I’m gonna try my best, okay? I’m gonna make sure we find that money somewhere, but…I just want to prepare you in case we have to adjust plans.”
“Okay,” I said.
“So…so that’s it.”
I tried to think of anything, anything to say. “You’ll get a new job. I mean, if you do get laid off, there’ll be another place,” I managed.
He nodded. “Sure. I’ll probably um…I’ll go over to GM and see if they need anybody, and…look around.” He exhaled.
I looked back at my dad. His eyes were watching the road, but they were far away. The clouds passed by the sun and it seemed like he faded a bit. I imagined my dad in that factory, walking up and down those steps every day. A piece of me wilted inside.
“But if I don’t get a job there,” he said, “it might mean, um…we might have to move.”
We went back to silence for the rest of the way, and for a brief moment I thought life was pretty bad, but I didn’t realize I was only a week away from…
Of all the times she dumped me, this one probably hurt the most. I know it’s weird to say it, bec
ause I wasn’t officially “in love” with her yet, but all that means is that I hadn’t told her that I was in love with her. I was still in love with her. No doubt about it.
It didn’t have anything to do with the letter.
It also had nothing to do with the fact that Amy had expressed an interest in playing Dungeons & Dragons with us.
“What?” said Brian, when I told him, two days prior to the actual event. “Are you kidding me?” If I was awkward around other people, Brian was downright petrified. He was most comfortable communicating through a series of fiendish traps and monsters designed to destroy our characters. The whole social part of existence gave him hives.
“She wants to check it out,” I said.
“Who does?” asked Brian.
“Dude,” said Groash. “Amy Freaking Carlson.”
A hush went through the room.
“That’s my girlfriend,” I said casually, like I-have-just-landed-on-the-moon, that’s-right-you-heard-that-correctly, the-motherfucking-moon. “I told her what we do over here and she wants to check it out.”
Brian rubbed his eyes. “What do you mean, check it out? You mean play? She wants to play?”
Elizabeth groaned. “No. This is what always happens with you guys, you fall in love with some chick, and then you bring them over here and they annoy the hell out of everyone.”
“This is like my first girlfriend ever,” I said.
“I’ve never had a girlfriend,” said Brian.
“All right, Groash does it, then. There was that freshman you brought over.” We all nodded. “There was that other freshman.” We all nodded again. Those were unfortunate episodes.
“Amy’s not like the losers Groash dated,” I said. “She’s cool.”
“Hey!”
I looked at him. “Come on.”
“All right. But dude—she likes you now, right? If she sees this, she’s not gonna like you anymore. I know women.”
Elizabeth rolled her eyes.
“Dude, I do. Whatever. They’re not that difficult.”
“You’re an idiot,” she said.
“Are you sure you’re actually going out with her?” said Brian. “This doesn’t sound realistic. You could be having an extended delusion.”
“It’s not an extended delusion.”
Groash jumped in. “I heard there’s like this horse tranquilizer—if you smoke it, you trip for days.”
Was there some kind of stoner message board that I was missing out on? Notice: new horse tranquilizer makes you trip for days. Pass it around.
“It’s not— Guys,” I sputtered. “She just wants to meet you. Check you out.”
Brian made a little snorting sound.
Elizabeth put a hand on my shoulder. “Are you sure that’s wise?”
“She’s already met Groash,” I said. “How much lower could her opinion of me go?”
“This is not going to happen,” said Brian. “Are you kidding me? She doesn’t know how to play, I can tell you that much. And then we’re going to have to explain everything to her; and that will slow everything down, and I want to get to the fight with the Association of Darkness before Christmas.”
“I still don’t think they should be called the Association of Darkness,” said Elizabeth. “That seems like a lame name for an evil cult.”
“They didn’t ask you!”
Elizabeth kept going. “Like, who came up with that name? I hereby call this meeting of evil priests to order. We’ll be taking suggestions for our name. Yes, you in the back. How about the Fraternity of Unpleasant People? No thanks. You, over there. The Corporation for Public Evil? That doesn’t even make any sense.”
“No girls,” said Brian finally. “They’re critical.”
Elizabeth put up her hands. “If there were more women in the Association of Darkness, they would’ve come up with a better name.”
“Can I just make this point?” I said. “I have the choice next Saturday of hanging out with you guys or hanging out with my superhot girlfriend. Which do you think I’m going to choose?”
Brian collapsed. “Fine. But she’s playing a fighter.”
“Hey, can I bring a chick again?” asked Groash.
But Amy didn’t come over the next Saturday to play Dungeons & Dragons. She was busy breaking my heart.
It was the first time I went over to her house.
“Okay,” she said while we were in the car on the way over. “I need to prepare you for this.”
“Your parents are aliens.”
“No.”
“Your parents are cannibals.”
“Craig.”
“Your parents are Wookiees.”
“That’s also an alien. Um…my parents are old. My dad is sixty-four, and my mom is sixty-one.”
I did some quick mental calculations. “Wow.”
“I’m adopted. Both me and my brother are adopted.”
“Oh, that’s cool.” There was obviously a lot I didn’t know about Amy. “Was it like a big secret or anything?”
“Um…no. My parents told me when I was, like, six. We had my brother by then, so it was pretty clear that we were not, you know, blood related.”
“Oh.”
“Either that or my mom had a much more interesting life than she let on. Glenn’s African American.”
“Oh. Very cool.” The entire black population of Janesville could fit inside a minivan. Well, maybe not one minivan. Maybe, like, two minivans or a charter bus. Anyway, we were in the running for the Whitest Town in the Universe. “So, um…have you ever wanted to find your birth mom?”
Amy smiled. “That’s always the first question.”
“Sorry.”
“No, it’s not just you. Everyone asks that. Like that’s supposed to be the happy ending, you know? You get reunited with your birth mom. That you’re somehow unfinished or empty without her—sometimes they say ‘real mom.’ I have a real mom.”
“Yeah.”
“And she’s a piece of work. But…of course I’ve wondered about it. When things aren’t going well with your parents you kind of…you think about it. Maybe there would be a connection there. Anyway, that’s not what I needed to prepare you for. My mom is…uh…she’s very sweet and also…um…demanding. You’ll see.”
And that’s how we got to the interrogation of Craig as performed by Amy’s mother.
Amy’s mom was stationed, as she usually was, in the kitchen. Her dad had taken his usual spot on the La-Z-Boy. Her dad, by the way, was a fairly large guy with a broad, smiling face and a full head of snow-white hair. He had huge hands and looked like he could’ve been in a Flintstones cartoon.
Amy’s mom was petite, with the twinkly features of a renegade Swedish elf. She had white hair that was pulled back in a smart ponytail, and she bore a rather strange resemblance to Amy. (Which was odd, because they weren’t genetically related.)
“So who’s this? Who’s this?” she asked with her thick Wisconsin accent. You have to imagine all her o’s were the size of beach balls.
“This is my friend Craig; we’re actually going to do some studying in my room,” said Amy, trying to run the gauntlet as fast as she could.
“Oh, no. You don’t get away that easily.”
“She’s gonna talk to you now,” called her dad from the other room. “Better buckle up! It’s coming down on ya.”
“Oh, you are the worst, Dan. He’s the worst.” She grabbed one of the chairs by the kitchen table and pulled it out. “Sit, sit, sit. Tell me about your college plans.”
“Mom.”
“I bet you have college plans. You look like you have college plans.”
“Well I, uh…I just visited a liberal arts college in Minnesota. Gustavus Adolphus.”
Amy’s mom rocked with glee. “Oh, that’s a good school. That is a good school. You know he’s Swedish?”
“I do, actually. I researched him and saw pictures of his luxurious mustache.”
She laughed, which was a kind of
musical honking. “You are funny! This one’s funny. He’s dead, ya know. He’s been dead for a long time. King of Sweden.”
“Yeah.”
“I wish this one would go closer to home.” She jabbed a finger at Amy. “She’s going to Australia next year.”
“No I’m not!”
“Might as well be Australia. UCLA.”
“That’s in California,” called her dad from the living room.
“They know it’s in California, hon. They’re not dumb.”
My heart sank when I heard that. I knew it wasn’t even December. I knew we had been going out for about four weeks, but the thought of her traveling so far away next year felt like someone was ripping my insides apart with a claw hammer. She had mentioned UCLA, but I didn’t know it was a done deal. I decided that as soon as I got home, I was going to apply to UCLA, which was idiotic. (Not that going to UCLA was idiotic, but changing your entire life plan based on a one-month relationship ranks pretty high up there on the stupid-things-to-screw-up-your-life list.)
Her mom tapped the table. “Of course, she could always go closer to home.”
“Mom—”
“She doesn’t want to do that. She doesn’t feel the need to be close to us. It’s fine. It’s all fine.” She chortled. “We’ll manage without her. Somehow.”
“Anyway, we’ve got a lot to do,” said Amy, trying to escape.
“What are you gonna major in? You probably haven’t thought that far ahead, have you? Oh, I am so sorry. Sometimes I just talk and they all want me to be quiet, but I’m gonna do it anyway!” She paused for a second. “So have you thought about it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe English?”
Amy’s mom smiled wide. “Oh that’s great. I love English.”
“’Cause it’s always coming out of her mouth,” called her dad.
She laughed. “You’re a hoot, Dan. He tried standup comedy once.”
“I did not.”
“He did. 1971. We were in Milwaukee. He gets up to tell his jokes. You know what happens? Nobody laughs. They were all thinking, Who is this lug? So I get up and I just start yelling, ‘LAUGH!’ Everybody laughed.”
Amy tried to pull me toward her room. “So anyway—”